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SELF EDUCATION: 



OU TUB 



PHILOSOPHY 



OJT 



MENTAL IMPROVEMENT 



BY WILLLIM HOSMER. 

M 



HAVANA. N. Y. : 
PUBLISHED BY WM. H. ONGLEY. : 

GENEVA, N. Y.: 

DERBY, WOOD & CO. . BUFFALO ; DERBY &. HE VVSON : 

BATH: UNDERHILL & CO. 

1847. 



Entered according to act of Congress in the Clerk's Office of the 
Northern District of New York, by 

WILLIAM HOSMER AND WILLIAM H. ONGLEY, 

in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and forty-seven. 






WILLIAM H. ONGLKY, PRINTER, UAVAJJA. 



\ 



PREFACE. 



Much has been written on education, and much that is of f^reat 
value ; but in this, as in otiier departments of literature, there is 
yet room for improvement. No great improvement, however, can 
be expected while our views contniue to be drawn from the school 
room raiher tlian from the philosophy of the human mind. 
Modes of teaching may be better or worse without materially 
afTecting the general question of intellectual capacit}', or in any 
degree adjusting the matter of instruction to the actual wants of 
that capacity. For want of greater care in this particular, the 
course of education, at the present day, wears an aspect of obse- 
quiousness truly painful to one who believes the mind of man to 
be still capable of excelling in original achievements. Excessive 
veneration for the past cuts off all hope for the future. 

Though we have many works on education, it must not be 
understood that we have many on sclf-education. The subject 
has not been cntirel)' overlooked, but it has seldom received the 
attention which it deserves. The schools have enjoj^ed a monopo- 
ly of public solicitude, and private education has laid neglected as 
a thing of no importance. What was within the reach of the 
unaided student few liave enquired ; and he has been left to bo 
something, or to be nothing, as chance might direct, for all agreed 
he could never be a scholar. Here, therefore, books are lament- 
ably pcarce. But little has been written on the subject, and that 
little not always in the manner best calculated to promote the 
ends in view. The best work, upon the whole, is that entitled 
♦' The Pursuit of Knowledge under Difficulties," and which was 
originally published in England by the " Society for the DifFu. 
Bion of Useful Knowledge." The matter of these volumes is 
excellent enough, but it is mostly without arrangement, and with, 
out reference to those principles of mental philosophy which the 
examples adduced aro so well adapted to illustrate. It is too nea r. 



IT PRBTACE. 

ly a collection of anecdotes to answer the purpose of a ecientific 
treatise. Dr. Channing's little work on " Self. Culture" and the 
spirited review of it by Dr. Edwards, are both valuable as far as 
they go; the only possible objection which can bs made to them is, 
that they are not larger. Since the last sheet of this work was 
printed, the author has met with a small volume on " Self.Culti- 
vation" by Isaac Taylor, the well-known author of " Natural His- 
tory of Enthusiasm." It bears marks of the writer's eminent tal- 
ents, although for elegance of style and depth of thought it can 
hardly be compared with some of his later productions. Whatev- 
er maybe the defects of these publications, it was from no wish to 
supersede any of them that the following work has been prepared ; 
the principal motive was to supply a more comprehensive view of 
the subject. 

This volume was nearly completed two years ago, but circum- 
stances over which the Author had no control, prevented its 
appearance at that time. The opportunity thus afforded him to 
examine his positions more fully, has not been unimproved ; and 
he now commits the work to the public with the hope that it may 
be found so far acceptable as not to induce a wish that its 
publication had been still longer delayed. 

THE AUTHOR. 

August, 1847. 



CONTENTS. 



INTRODUCTION. 

General objects of the work — Eiincation advancing— No design to 
attack the prevailing system— Tiie two systems contrasted only 
for illustration, not for defence — Reference chiefly had to the 
entire capacities and opportunities of the mind. Page 9-lG. 

CH2YPTEII I. 

Prkliminary observations on the Constitution of the Ruman 
Mind. The operations of tiic intellect arc uniform in manner — 
Intuitive — Naturally perfect — Neither wliollv necessary nor 
wholly voluntary — Mind improved by tlie acquisition of knowl- 
edge, and not hy an increase of organic power — lis acquisitions 
depend upon its own exertions — Its acts greatly diversified in 
the character of their objects. 17-35. 

CHAPTER 11. 

Education. Derivation and import of the word — Does not essen- 
tially invigorate the mind — Consists of knowledge — Valuable 
just in proportion to tlie importance of the things learned — Not 
designed to teach us how to think, but to make us think and 
to direct the mind to the proper object of thought — Perversions 
of the term — Conclusion. 36-41. 

CHAPTER III. 

Self-Education. Denotes acquirements made without a teacher 
— Longer time required — Wider range of studies — Higher char- 
acter of its objects, 42-45. 

CHAPTER IV. 

Practicability of Self-Education. The nature of Education — 
Faculties of the mind — Condition under which all scientific 
pursuits arc prosecuted — Incompetency of schools to furnish thfj 
requisite instruction — Incidental character of the assistance af. 
forded by scliools — History of literature — E.xamples of self-edu- 
cated men — Nature of science — Analogy. 46-57. 

CHAPTER V. 

The Means of Self-Education. Section i. Literature. — Lan- 
guage the repository of knowledge — Only of limited use in 
reasoning — Not more important to works of imagination — Effect 



TJ CONTEXTS. 

of refi!icmciii,f= in fifyle — Ancient clasf;ic8 unnccessavy as mi^dcls 
of ptylo, and valaaljlc only as conservaiois of knowledge — Study 
of dead lancrua^es — Why not necessary lo but few — Translations 
sufficient — Language of small intrinsic value — Its relative im- 
portance. 58-69. 

Section n. Scimce. — Mind not available without knowledge — 
The celebrated observation of Bacon, that knowledge is equiva- 
lent to power — The merits of several sciences particularly 
considered — Natural philosophy — Matiieniatics — Logic — First 
Princij)!es — The}' lead to discoveries — Their corrective tendency 
— Constitute the foundation of education — Should be especially 
regarded in self-education. 

Section hi. Collateral Aids. — Social position — Susincss — The 
Arts — General knowledge. 88-91. 

Section iv. Practical Principles. — An elevated and independent 
purpose — Right direction of studies — Ajiplication — Original ob. 
sorvation — Analytical reasoning — Expansion of sentiment — 
Universality of thought — Combination of practice and theory. 

92-112. 

Section v. Mechanical Facilities. — Books — Reading — ^^Vriting 
Apparatus — Li brari es . 113-119. 

Section vi. Patronage. — Hopes of patronage falacious — Want — 
Providence — Personal effort. 119-125. 

Section vii. Pecuniary Resources. — Industry — Eeonomj? — Self- 
denial — Retirement — Accommodations. 126-132, 

CHAPTER VI, 

Hindrances to Self-Education. Want of time — Want of money 
— A supposition that science is only to be obtained by a profound 
acquaintance with literature — An impression that teachers are 
necessary — Insisting upon too many conveniences — Regarding 
genius as essential to all intellectual efforts — Needless fears of the 
diificulty of the work-^Ignorance of education — Errors respect, 
ing the extent of education — An idea that nothing but strictly 
literary and scientific pursuits have any tendency to inform the 
understanding — And that manual labor is incompatible with lit- 
erary pursuits — Want of perseverance — Absence of voluntary 
engagements — Wrong views in reference to the art of writing — 
And also as to its prerequisites — Thinking that nothing new re- 
mains to the ambition of the student — Supposed imperfection of 
self-education — Disrelish for learning — Waiting for more favor- 
able circumstances — Neglect of natural aptitude — Mental va- 
cancy — Miscellaneousness — Neglecting fragments of time — 
Distrust of time — False view of literary institutions. 133-174, 

CHAPTER VII. 

Advantages of S f.lf.Education. Includes those hfilonging to the 
tjommon system, with others peculiar to itself— -Forms tlie liabit 
of analyzing — Initiates the mind info the secret of mental acqui- 
sition — Facilitates the retention and application of knowledge — 
Confines the mind to original sources — Furnishes the earliest 
opportunities for observation. 175-181, 



CONTENTS. VII 

CIIAPTEll VIII. 

IMoTivca TO Sr.Lr-EnucATioN. A desire to redeem ecir.cdiication 
from r '[jroiicli — .N'cccssity — Excinptioii from (lio tiaiiinicls of 
aulhority — ProvidoDtial allot men t — EmulaLioii — Improvement 
of science — Self-protection — No otlier method of attaining true 
proatiicss — DitlJLibion of greatness — Wish to Lo free from 
dependence. 1S6-2UG. 

CHAPTER IX. 

Mf.ntal Chauacteristics demanded by the ENTEurRtzK. Love 
of .Stud\- — Firmness — Conaciousncsa of ability — Courage — Con- 
viclion that learninjr is indisi)ciisal)lc, 207-214. 

CHAPTER X. 

Ennous OF Self-Educatiov. Consist in violating certain rules of 
criticism — Mostly traits of independent genius, and inseparable 
from original achievement — Criticism of no aulhoritv — Its evils 
—Its absurdity. 21G-227. 

CHAPTER XL 

SciENTiFC AND Artistic Rui.es. Not nnccssary — Many arts and 
sciences acquired without tlicm — None for producing the higher 
works of art — Subsequent to art and science — Genius always in 
advance of the age. 228-232. 

CHAPTER XII. 

Schools. Knowledge emenates from the mind — Literature and 
science tiic same in all places — Need of stronger motives — Too 
circumscribed — Evcrj' one must ultimately practice on a differ- 
ent system — Danger of being superficial — Confined to relative 
sciences — Literature perfect before llio schools existed — Thoir 
value estimated. 233-243 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Inventions and Discoveries. Their relative importance — Means 
by which they are to be aceomplislicd — Characteristics of the 
work — Conclusion. 243-250 

APPENDIX. 

Car'yle on Universities — Translations — Prayers of Bacon and 
Johnson — Account of young Saftbrd and of R. R. Jones. 

251-2G2. 



SELF EDUCATION. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The primary object of this work is to offer some en- 
couragement to those whose circumstances are such as to 
deprive them of the ordinary advantages for intellectual 
cultivation. Of this class are those young persons who 
have neither the time nor the money demanded by the 
usual course of education. It can not have escaped the 
observation of any one that our schools, however excellent, 
do not meet the wants of a large portion of society. 
These institutions can furnish only instruction ; the means 
by which the student is to be supported come not within 
their purveyance. Now if education is to be had at school, 
and no where else, the persons to whom I allude can never 
be educated, because the necessary means are beyond their 
reach. It is useless to inform such individuals of advanta- 
ges to be enjoyed under other circumstances; they ar« 
doomed to conflict with necessity, and it can only add to 
their mortification to be made the subjects of impertinent 
Erections. That education is to be had at school, they 
very well know ; that good books are to be preferred U 
poor on^, and that reading is to be conducted wth diK- 

a 



10 SELff BDUCATIOK. 

geat attention, they are also aware ; but all this has noth- 
ing to do with their case, as they can avail themselves nei- 
ther of the one nor the other. It is of no use to give di- 
rections that can not be followed, and unless suggestions can 
be made which will remove the embarrassments connected 
with this class of youth, it is but justice to refrain from 
insulting their misfortunes by abortive advice. Youth of 
this description need and desire instruction ; they feel the 
difficulties which press upon them and would gladly find re- 
lief. But few, however, are able to appreciate their situa- 
tion or give them that assistance which the nature of their 
condition demands. Too often aspirations originating from 
such minds are discouraged as fruitless attempts against 
fate, and the daring individual is reminded of the seeming- 
ly impassable barriers in the way of his advancement ; and 
then, finding himself overlooked by the popular system of 
instruction, he is but too apt to acquiesce in the fatal con- 
viction that, with regard to him, education is impracticable. 
Believing that there is no necessity for yielding to difficul- 
ties of any kmd, these pages will be devoted to the inter- 
ests of unfriended youth, and will take up their hopes pre- 
cisely where existing arrangements and mistaken advice 
would lay them down. 

There is another class of persons equally large, and equal- 
ly within the range of objects comprehended by this work ; 
I mean those of maturer years, who are either settled in 
life, or engaged in business under such circumstances as 
measurably to exclude them from literary advantages. 
Most conditions of active life allow comparatively httle 
time for literary and intellectual cultivation ; and if a per- 
son commences business with limited attainments in litera- 
ture, he is almost sure to end with less. Yet this melan- 
choly result is not invariable. Some of the most distin- 
guished names in the annals of science were men who ac- 



INTRODUCTION. 11 

quired their learning amid the uninterrupted toils of a la- 
borious trade or profession. It is beUeved that what has 
thus been done in a few instances, ought not to be attrib- 
uted solely to superior powers. Much is unquestionably 
to be ascribed to the transcendent abilities of these men, 
but they themselves could never be made to impute their 
success to this cause. What seemed to others a mystery 
was to them plain ; they knew the steps by which their 
eminence had been gained, and believed that others had 
only to make the same attempt to become alike distin- 
guished. Modesty may, perhaps, have contributed some- 
thing to this opinion, as merit is not allowed to assert its 
own claims ; but abating all that is requisite on the ground 
of undervaluation, still we are obliged to conclude that they 
owed at least as much to the character of their efforts as 
to the extent of their abilities. Knowing the efficiency of 
a judicious method, it is not surprising that they forgot the 
peculiar advantages with which, in their own case, it had 
boon pursued. We can not hope that all men will so far 
extricate themselves from the entanglements of a business 
life as to profit by any suggestions of this kind ; the de- 
sire for improvement too frequently diminishes with the 
same pace that opportunities decrease. There are those, 
however, who feel more keenly as they advance, and the 
desires which actuated them but feebly in youth have be- 
come irrepressible in riper years. With these, the full im- 
portance of the subject was never felt until experience had 
confirmed the truth of early convictions and a change cf 
circumstances assured them that the most favorable period 
for education had already passed. The loss of a single 
liour is to be regretted, and every additional hindrance is, 
in some sense, an evil, but it will be seen that facts author- 
ize no discouragement, and the indomitable spirit need not 
acknowledge any insurmountable obstacle. 



12 SEI,7 EDUCATION. 

Independent of these considerations there are a variety 
of reasons for discussing more fully the laws of mental im- 
improvement. "Were it ascertained that education is ex- 
clusively the gift of the schools, vre yet require to he better 
informed on what principles it is imparted. This is de- 
manded not less by the philosophy of mind than by a de- 
sire for that continued advancement which is rendered 
necessary by the circumstances of active hfe. Youth can 
not learn at school aU that is requisite for practical pur- 
poses. Much they may acquii-e, but the stock of theoretical 
knowledge with which they enter upon the world must re- 
ceive additions and corrections. They must continue to 
Icarn, and as they cannot always remain at school, it is es- 
sential that they sho\dd know whether further improvement 
is practicable or not. If not fuUy convinced of the affirm- 
ati*vc of this question, they will think their education m 
completed and rest where others have done to the great 
disgrace of learning. It wUl be the object of these pagc» 
to supply hints that may be useful even to those who en- 
joy all the advantages afforded by the schools.. 

One purpose which wo have In view is to impart a self- 
sustaining influence to the mind. More miss their way at 
aU periods of life, and in all the varied pursuits of human 
existence, by mistaking- their own capacity for action than 
from all other causes combined. The competency of mind 
for groat undertakings is not always to be known but upon 
actual trial ; however, in general, the individual has a strong 
conviction of ultimate success. This conviction is one of 
the most considerable motives to perseverance, and indeed 
was jirincipally influential in first directing the mind towards 
the object which it is seeking to accomplish. "We have 
most reason to apprehend a failure in any effort from the 
iec&y of this species of confidence. It is a strong motive 
power indispensable to every enterprise. While i% oan bs 



iNTROLITCTlOK. 15 

kept in vigorous cxcrcipc, there is Lut liltk danger of de- 
feat ; under its inspiration the person becomes unconquer- 
able. Early life is perhaps more favorable to this kind of 
inspiration ; yet it properly belongs to every period, and 
i.i, if I mistake not, the natural and necessary result ef 
observation ; it is an intuitive conviction, impracticable per- 
haps to other,s, but entirely within the grasp of its possessor. 
Failures have a tendency to dimini.sh it, and on the other 
hand it is always increased by success. 

Again, there is a certain loftiness of design to which 
practical efficiency is much indebted. Where the aim is 
too low, where great things have not even been attempted, 
much success must be a matter of chance. For this reason 
it is pecidiarly ■desirable to elevate, and keep elevated, the 
standard of endeavor. Meagre attempts are justly reward- 
ed with corresponding poverty of effects. To keep the 
mind resolutely engaged in ' proportion to its capacity, is 
not always practicable, at least in every case ; there will 
be occasionally a falling off in the most resolute natures, 
but vigilance re-awakens the slumbering energies and sliakes 
off every inferior purpose. Man should not supinely fii 
■down and revolve the gloomy conception of inability; he 
ought to be thankful that there are difficulties cnougli to 
put his strength to the test — that there is aa opportucity 
for him to develope those fine qualities which, in other ages, 
have given celebrity to mankind. 

The great cause of education is onward, and it is well 
for society that this affirmation can be made in truth. But 
with its advancement must come new aspects. Changes, 
many of them fundamental, have already occurred, and 
others are in a course of development. Others may be 
alarmed at exhibitions of this kind, but the writer is not ; 
he views these different phases as inseparable from real 
progress. Were the advancement only imaginary, unifor? 



14 SELF IJDUdATIOfr. 

suity might possibly be maintained. It is otherwise, ho'W-* 
ever, when actual improvements take place; these must al- 
ways be new to us, and attended with that sort of dislike 
which, we bear to objects seemingly unnecessary. But this 
essay is not intended to subserve merely theoretical pur- 
poses ; it has no interest in any system as such, nor will it 
aim at more than aiding somewhat the great object of the 
schools — mental improvement. This done, and the writer 
has nothing more to ask ; but he can not believe that ex- 
isting arrangements are such as to secure all that is prac- 
ticable ; they may avail under certain circumstances, but 
there are those, and many of them too, whose interests are 
untouched by the ordinary course of things. For these 
other arrangements ought to be made that the culture of 
mind may not be hmited to classes of men who acciden- 
tally can command a given amount of money. 

These observations render it unnecessary for me to say 
that this work is not designed as an attack upon the pre- 
vailing system of education. None can more sincerely 
recommend to youth an early and prolonged enjoyment of 
the advantages afforded by our schools than the writer ; 
none can more truly wish that these advantages were uni- 
Tersally available. But this it is well known, they are not 
and can not be. A great revolution must occur in society 
— a greater than has ever yet been known — before even 
the lowest grade of literary institutions can become ac- 
cessible to all. Something more is demanded than free 
tuition; books, clothing, board, direction, and exemption 
from the restraints of parental authority, wherever that 
authority is averse to such pursuits, are equally requis- 
ite. Now if such difl&eulties are to be encountered in 
finding access to subordinate institutions, there are cer- 
tainly much greater -ones to be met when our attention Ib 
directed to institutions of a higher grade. Schools of this 



INTRODUCTION. 15 

class are not only less frequent and less economical, but 
they offer their assistance at so late a period that the 
youthful mind is in great danger of being pre-occupied. 
Before the pre-rcquisites of academical education can be 
secured, many are drawn into the vortex of active life, 
and lost to all the advantages of knowledge. We have 
then only to make the best of that necessity which hith- 
erto has proved unavoidable, and give such directions to 
youth as their embarrassed condition requires, and the 
known abiHty of the human mind wUl justify. 

In doing this the cause of self- education is incidentally 
brought into contrast with what is usually considered the 
regular method of improvement. Nothing could be farther 
from the object in view than to disparage the present ap- 
proved system of instruction. Such a contrast is demand- 
ed merely as a test of relative efl&ciency. The two meth- 
ods could not otlierwise be compared, or more properly, the 
relative value of each coidd not otherwise be ascertained. 
Much less is it intended to enter upon a defense of self- 
education. It is its own defense. Not unfrequently the 
self-educated man has been frowned upon as though not 
entitled to rank among the learned ; his attainments have 
been viewed with suspicion, and any trifling offense has 
subjected him to the condition of a literai'y outlaw. For 
this evil, cruel and foolish as it unquestionably is, the nat- 
ural remedy lies in the character of those who suffer. If 
these aspersions can be shown to be unfounded, if the at- 
tainments thus contemptuously treated are such as ought 
to be respected, it is not in the power of the republic cf 
letters — whatever we may understand by that famous, but 
rather attenuated government — to deprive him of his just 
honors. Self-educated men must claim nothing more than 
they can command. Prescription is against them, but this 
shall not impair their energies nor circumscribe their efforts. 



19 SELJ EDUCATION'. 

Stopping then neither to oppose the prevalent system of 
education nor to defend that which accomplishes its pur- 
pose without the aid of the schools, I shall endeavor to 
pursue higher objects, such as are worthy of the mind of 
man, and relate less to his incipient training than to his 
native capacity. A regular course of instruction — under- 
standing these terms in the popular sense — is wholly use- 
less excejDt as a pre-rec[uisite to future action. It is this 
future scene of action that ought chiefly to be considered 
ill every attempt at intellectual cultivation. That educa- 
tion must be best which renders the mind most efficient 
for the objects of its being. Scholastic attainments derive 
their consequence from a supposed subserviency to this 
pjxrposc ; they qualify the intellect for its subsequent ca- 
reer. Early education is only an introductory process, and 
its value is to be tested by the success which it confers in 
the more appropriate' and more extended field of mental 
exertion. Here where knowledge is applied, where achieve- 
ment reaches its acme, and where effort ceases only with 
life, it is chiefly important to be influenced by correct views. 
Our novitiate is too short to be decisive, and the burden 
of responsibility is thrown forward to future years. We 
are therefore not so much concerned with what the mmd 
can do in a short period of its early career, as with the 
aggregate of its toilg in the lengthened space of aft«r life. 



CHAPTER I 

Prcliiiiinary Observations on the Con- 
stitution of the Unman Mind. 

Every s^-stem of education must depend for its siiccess 
upon a strict confonnitj to the laws of mind. Peculiar 
circumstances might give tcmporar}'- efficiency to a system 
wanting ia philosophical adaptation, but the subsequent 
and general result would justly forfeit public confidence. 
From the limits, however, which must be assigned to this 
chapter, I shall aim rather to lay down principles than to 
discuss them. Questions relating to the essence of mind 
and to the olassiiication of its faculties are omitted because 
they have no immediate connection with the object of this 
work. Such speculations belong inalienably to the province 
of the metaphysician, and from their great abstruscness 
are incapable of throwing much light upon the process of 
education. But there are features of the mental constitu- 
tion, of a more jiractical character, and which are not only 
better understood, but acknowledged as the source of its 
competency. These constitute the reliable power of the 
mind in all its gi-eat undertakings, rendering it always con- 
fident and often irresistible. 

1. The operations of the intellect are characterized by 
uniformity of manner. By this I mean that what the in- 
tellect does, it does in one way, althougii the residt of its 
action is not always the same ; it reasons, remembers, per- 
ceives, imagines, and performs every other act of which 
we know it to be capable, in the same inscrutable manner, 



18 SBL^ EDCCAfibK. 

aud apparently without any plurality of organic powers 
In fact, all acts of the mind a,re only modifications of 
thought, and in affirming that these acts are characteiized 
by a certain uniformity, we merely assert that, in this re- 
spect, the process of thinking is sul^ject to no perceptible 
variation. This uniformity in the practical operations of 
the mind shows that its various faculties have been consti- 
tuted with similar perfection ; that its powers are ec^uaUy 
endowments from the Creator, and independent of contin- 
gent cii-cumstances. If only a part of our intellectual fac- 
ulties had an inherent competency, we should be disquali- 
fied for our present existence ; for there is not a day nor 
scarcely an hour of active life in which the perfect use of 
all these powers is not indispensable. Because they are 
thus equally necessary, they have been constituted equally 
perfect, and placed with the other instinctive powers of hu- 
man nature, beyond the reach of any considerable organ- 
ic improvement, and wholly independent of cultivation. 
The attributes of the mind, like the members of the body, 
derive their perfection simultaneously with their existenc-e 
from the creating hand. From their conservative tenden- 
cy they have been made constituent parts of our being ; 
and so far from being dependent upon education are they^ 
that education is wholly dependent upon them. The idiot 
is incapable of mental culture, and every degree of im- 
perfection in the intellectual faculties is attended with its 
proportionate incapacity for education. The uniformity of 
manner which we ascribe to the functions of the intelligent 
principle has too often been overlooked by metaphysicians, 
and they have involved themselves in numberless errors by 
attempting what in its nature is impracticable — an expo- 
sition of the secret springs of mental action. Not satis- 
fied with knowing that the mind is endowed by nature with 
a capacity for certain acts, they have aimed to detect and 



CONSTITUTION OP TUE MIND- IS 

bring to light its occult mctliods, and tliercby strip its ac- 
quisitions of all mystery. Such subjects were oiice deemed 
legitimate objects for philosophical impiry, and under the 
influence of this conviction the most eminent men freely 
entered the lists of fruitless speculation. Accordingly wc 
find Locke maintaining that a part of our knowledge is by 
intuition, and a part by demonstration* ; yet consistency 
obliged him virtually to set aside this distinction by admit- 
ting that demonstration is the result cf a series of intui- 
tive perceptions. But we are indebted to his indignation 
against the scholastic logic for a still stronger statement in 
which he ranks reason as an intuitive faculty, and aifirnis 
that men have no need of rules to teach them an art with 
which they are already acquainted. " God has not been 
so sparing to men as to make them barely two-legged crea- 
tures, and left it to Aristotle to make them rational. He 
has given them a mind that can reason without being in* 
Structed in methods of syllogising : the understanding is 
not taught to reason by these rules ; it has a native facul- 
ty to 2)Grceive the coherence of its ideas, and can range 
tliem right without any such perplexing repetitions.'' "t — 
This passage sufficiently refutes that part of his theory 
which, by restricting intuition to a few incipient acts of 
the mind, makes ratiocination a mere mechanical process. 
That the mind is dependent upon reason or the discursive 
faculty, for much of its knoAvledge, is beyond dispute; 
this, however, d(.>es not alter the case, for the operations of 
reason are as clearly intuitive as those of simple perception. 
The intellect in advancing from the intuitions of sense t-o 
the processes of reason, does not lay aside its original mode 
of acquisition in favor of one more intelligible to us ; it 
acts always in the same manner, whatever may be tlie re- 

* Essay on the Understanding, Book 4, Ch. xvii., Sec. 14. 
t Book 4, Ch. s>ii., Sec. 4. 



so SELF EDUCATION. 

»ult of its action, like tlie eye which has orJj one method 
of seeing, though there is an infinite variety in the objects 
of vision. These observations acqiure great force if we 
regard the human rjiud, not as a collection of independent 
faculties, but as a rational agent capable of diversified ac- 
tion. Mental phenomena are then traceable to a common 
cause, and must necessarily be alike incomprehensible. 

2. The operations of the mind are intuitive. Intuition 
implies the spontaneous exercise of natural powers. We 
think as naturally, -and I may add, as necessarily as we 
breathe, and the miad no more learns to think than the 
body learns to respire. Hence, M'hatever modification of 
thought may be put fforth, whether it be memory or imagin- 
ation, perception or reason, it is the effect of unoriginated 
capacity, and involved in the constitution of an intelligent 
natui'e. Some metaphysicians have very carelessly ranked 
i:ituition as a distinct faculty of the mind, vfhereas it is in 
no sense a faculty, but merely denotes the manner of all 
tlie faculties.* Of this process we know nothing except 
its occasional dependence upon certain physical conditions, 
as, for instance, in perception, where the mind is mechanic- 
ally assisted by the organs of vision. But as we can not 
perceive how the mind operates upon tliese instrumentali- 
ties, nor comprehend any of its essential powers, we are 
forced to admit that it acts by intuition — that is, in a way 
which we do not understand, but which requires neither 
previous time nor previous preparation. 

3. It is further to be observed, that these acts of the 
mind are natiu-ally perfect. In this respect the strictly in- 
tellectual faculties bear a striking analogy to the corporeal 

* " From feeling arise the activities of the mind in the following 
order: intuition, conception, recollection, imagination, memory, 
thonght." — Biblical Repository, Jan., 1845, (Stowc's Teutonic Met- 
9phjfi"B.) This is given as Kant's doctrine on the subject. 



CONSTITUTION OF TUB MIND. 21 

sonsos, and to the involuntary functions of the physical 
system generally, none of which become more perfect by 
the lapse of time or admit of essential improvement by 
means of cultivation. The eye is as perfect, the precision 
of instinct as groat, and the self-regulated movements of 
animal mechanism as harmonious and efficient, in infancy 
as in manhood. And so far as the operations of intellect 
c^au bo traced at that fecblo period, they indicate the same 
measure of inr.atc and constitutional perfection. " I am 
aware," says Dr. Brown, " that the apphcation to an in- 
fant, of a process of reasoning, expressed in grave and 
formal philosophic nomenclature, has some chance of ap- 
pcarir.g ridiculous. But the reasoning itself is very diiier- 
ent from the terms employed to express it, and is truly as 
sini{)le and natural as the terms, which our language obliges 
us to employ in expressing it, are abstract and artificial. 
The infant, however, in his feeling of similarity of antece- 
dents and consequents, and of the necessity, therefore, of 
a new antecedent, where the consequent is different, haa 
the reasoning, but not the terms. lie does not form the 
proposition as universal, and appiical)le to cases that have 
not yet existed : but he feels it iu every particular ease as 
it occurs. That he does truly reason, M"ith at least as 
much subtlety as is involved in the process now supposed, 
can not be doubted by those who attend to the manifeet 
results of his little inductions, in those acquisitions of 
knowledge which show themselves in his actions, and, I 
may say, almost in the very looks of the little rcasoncr, — 
at a period long before that to which his o'U'n remembrance; 
is afterwaitls to extend, when, in the maturer progress cf* 
his intellectual powers, the darkness of eternity will meet 
bis eye alike, whether he attempt to gaze on the past, cr 
©a the future ; and the wish to know the events with which 
he is afterwards to be occupied and interested, will not be 



22 SEII EDUCATION. 

more nnavailing tBan the ■wish to retrace events that were 
the occupation and interest of the most important years of 
his existence." " Even then, many a process of ratiocin- 
ation is going on which might have served as an example 
of strict logic to Aristotle himself, and which affords re- 
sults far more valuable to the individual reasoner than all 
the contents of all the folios of the crowd of that great 
logician's scholastic commentators."* 

Not only are the faculties of the infant mind perfect, 
but they possess all the peculiarities which are to distin- 
guish them in subsequent life. A remark to this effect 
occurs in one of Dr. Johnson's biographical pieces. " That 
the strength of Sydenham's understanding, the accuracy 
of his discernment, and ardor of his curiosity, might have 
been remarked from his infancy by a diligent observer, 
there is no reason to doubt. For there is no instance of 
any man whose history has been minutely related, that did 
not in every part of life discover the same proportion of 
intellectual vigor."t If we allow that the acts of the 
mind are intuitive, their perfection follows as a necessary 
consequence, because intuition places them beyond tlie 
reach of cultivation. They are the result of a process 
independent of himian sagacity or control, and originate 
in this manner, that man might under all circumstances bo 
competent to act the part of a rational creature. But for 
this precaution of nature, rationaUty would have been a 
contingent blessing, confined entirely to the precincts of 
education. 

-1. Mind acts necessarily, but is capable of voluntary 
direction. Locke observes that, " our knowledge, as in 

* Philosophy of the Human Mind, by Thomas Brown, M. D., 
Vol. 1. Lee. 23. The process here alluded to is that by which an 
nfant acquires its first knowledge of tangible qualities. 

t Life of Sydenham. 



CONSTITUTION 07 THE MIND, 2S 

Other things, so ia this, has a great conformity with our 
sight, that it is neither wholly necessary, nor wholly vol- 
untary."* Action appears to be as natural and as indis- 
pensable to the intellectual as to the material part of th^e 
human system. Whether the intelligent principle ever 
intermits its activity, is another question, and one, which, 
however it may be decided, can not determine the mode of 
its operation in our conscious moments. The eye sees ia 
all ordinary cases, by constitutional necessity, and yet ita 
action may be suspended either by sleep or the will of the 
individual. It is not optional then, with the intellect, 
■whether it thinks or not, nor is it altogether able to deter- 
mine the objects about which its constant activities shall 
be employed. That it has the power of self- direction, to 
some extent, is certain, although its course is liable to a 
thousand interruptions. It is however to this capacity 
for voluntary direction that tlic mind is chiefly indebted 
for its scientific acquisitions. Still its method is unchanged, 
and the knowledge which is acquired by voluntary apphca- 
tion is gained in the same manner as that which is forced 
upon us by nature. All the facts which are requisite for 
man to know do not naturally present themselves to his 
observation, and he has the power therefore of bringing 
art and industry to increase the stock of his knowledge. 
But as the eye has only one method of %ision for all ob- 
jects, whether natural or artificial, so the intellect scans 
the creations of its own industry and the spontaneous 
productions of providence, with the same intuitive glance. 
Some things we must know, others we may know, but 
contingency neither precludes intuition nor enables us to 
dispense with it. The various sciences are so many in- 
stances of truth elaborated by a voluntary application of 

* Book 4. Chap. 13. Sec. 1. 



2-1 SBLJ EDTTCATIOI?. 

intuitive powers. Human nature is therefore invested 
with faculties which, if they do not admit of material im- 
provement, are nevertheless capable of useful direction. 

5. Our intellectual faculties are so constituted that 
the improvement of which they are susceptible, consists 
chie3y in the acquisition of knowledge, and not in the in- 
crease of organic power. The common impression on this 
subject seems to be that the mental faculties exist only ia 
an incipient state, or as bare susceptibilities. We are ac- 
customed therefore to look upon these powers as genus 
which must be expanded in order to form an iuteEectual 
cliaracter. It is considered the appropriate work of edu- 
cation to bring them to maturity by actual expansion. 
The following remarks of Dr. Reid contain a fair expres- 
sion of the popular view of this subject. " Of the various 
powers and faculties we possess, there are some which na- 
ture seems both to have planted and reared, so as to have 
left nothing to human industry. Such are the powers 
which we have in common with the brutes, and which arc 
necessary to the preservation of the individual, or the con- 
tinuance of the kind. There are other powers, of which 
nature hath only planted the seeds in our minds, but hath 
left the rearing of them to human culture. It is by the 
proper culture of these that we are capable of all those 
improvements ia intellectuals, in taste, and in morals, which 
exalt and dignify human nature ; while on the other hand, 
the neglect or perversion of them makes its degeneracy and 
corruption."* I am well persuaded that the sentiment 
here exhibited is erroneous, and that the human intellect 
is capable of no such advancement as it supposes. Peopk 
have seen that the mind is capable of improvement, and 
have carelessly imputed to an acquired perfection of its 

* Ififjulry into the Hunaan Tdlind, Chap. 1, Sec. 2. 



CONSTITUTION OF THE MIND. ZO 

faculties, ^vllat can only be properly ascribed to a judicious 
use of those faculties. Improvement is something very 
diiferont from an augmentation of constitutional ability ; 
the former may be effected by industry, the latter must l)o 
the result of creative energy ; the one requires only the 
proper use of our powers as they now are, — the other 
demands their re- construction on a larger scale. But in 
no department of nature is organic development entrusted 
to human supervision. Providence has made arrange- 
ments for the complete endowment of its ci*eaturcs without 
the need of their concurrence. The seeds have not been 
planted to await the culturing hand of man; whatever 
exists in our nature in a rudimental state is attended by 
influences that ensure its spontaneous development and 
maturity in due time for every practical purpose. It is 
however from facts connected with the history of the mind 
that this notion derives its cfieetual refutation. Educa- 
tion has never been known to add any thing to the intrinsic 
ability of the human intellect. In every age of the world 
uneducated mind has proved itself ecjual to the hio-liest 
efforts of genius ; and when brought into comparison with 
the most approved specimens of cultured intellect, the 
latter is found to have acquired nothing essential by the 
process through which it has passed. In this respect 
knowledge is like wealth — it adds nothing to the talents 
cf its possessor; a man may amass property, but his 
physical and intellectual faculties will remain the same as 
before. Were it the case that our minds could be thus 
expanded, the results of education would be greatly 
modified, and every weak understanding would find a 
sovereign remedy in the invigorating power of science. 
Such a pleasing consequence of industry might bo grati- 
fying, but has never yet occurred, and never can, until the 
laws of nature arc changed. Man now brings to the stJudj 



-Q SBLS' EDUCATlOJf. 

of truth, powers which gain nothing by his researches, or 
at least nothing more than the eye gains by seeing, or the 
body by exercise. Their first and their last exhibitions 
are equal. No great character that has apjjeared in any 
department of human enterprise, has ever been less acute 
or less efficient in his first than in his subsequent efforts. 
8ir Isaac Newton made his two most important discoveries, 
.li'luxions and Gravitation, before his tAventy-fifth year. 
A long life, with all the advantages of constant study, did 
not enable him to display greater skill in scientific researches . 
Had his faculties been capable of such an expansion as in 
commonly supposed, the latter period of his life must have 
been marked by a corresponding brilliancy over the earlier 
part of his intellectual career. Another objection to this 
view of the subject is, that an increase of organic power 
is wholly unnecessary. We do not need a development of 
new powers,^ but simply an application of those which we 
already possess. The mind has unemployed strength 
sufficient for all its wants. It is now competent to know 
every useful trixth, and any addition to its ability would be 
as superfluous as it is impracticable, 

Now altiiough the idea of ehciting the powers of the 
mind, and thereby giving them a perfection not otherwise 
attainable, and which they did not previously possess, is 
obviously unphilosophical, as well as contradictory of facts, 
yet it remains an established truth that intellectual im- 
provement is both practicable and necessary. While the 
acquisition of knowledge has no organic efi^ect, it still 
subserves, all the important uses for which it was intended- 
Knowledge is a species of treasure accumulated to be 
applied as the wants of life require. It is a power which 
the mind has learned to employ for its own advantage. 
Mechanieal powers add nothing to the strength of man, 
and yet hj their meang he U able to accomplish undertak- 



CONSTITUTION OP THE MIND. 27 

ings inconceivably beyond his unaided capacity. In liko 
manner art and science contribute nothing to the mine!, 
though through their instrumentality it can eifect the most 
gigantic achievements. We behold Archimedes baffling 
the power of armies, Columbus terrifying the inhabitants 
of the West India Islands into submission, and La PlacR 
quieting the fears of mankind as to the " wreck of matter 
and the crush of worlds" from orbicular derangement; 
but in neither instance did these great men rely upon their 
unaided faculties, or wield any other power than that whieli 
science supplies to every diligent student. By nearly all 
that civilization exceeds a savage state, are we indebted to 
the transforming influence of science— an influence not 
restricted to superior abilities, but as universally available 
as any thing can be v/hich depends upon the industrious 
a])pUcation of commoviw sense. The savage has powers 
abundantly suSicifiiit if he would apply them ; the attri- 
butes of his loiind need only a proper direction to make him 
the peer of civilized man. His faculties need no improve- 
ment but that which is derived from the possession of 
Jcno-wlcdgo, nor does his condition require any but tlsat 
■vvJuch arises from the use of his faculties, 

It is said that the Indians, when they first saw letters 
tised to convey information, supposed that the paper spoke ; 
and a similar want of philosoplucal observation has led to 
the very general opinion that the mind is itself litorislly 
expanded by the acquisition of knowledge — that it is 
cultivated, in short, much as we would cultivate a plant, 
and undergoes a similar enlargement. From its increased 
power, it is supposed that this must be the efl^ect. But 
this kind of analogy is inadmissible when applied to things 
BO very diffierent in their natures. I do not mean their 
essences, for in that respect we know nothing of either, 
but simply the laws which govern them as organized, or, at 



28 SELF EDUCATIOi\, 

least, as inclei^endent existences. And if it be true that 
the miad acquires its growth by degrees like the body, it 
would even then develop itself spontaneously in the same 
}nauuer as the physical system now does. We have seen^ 
however, that human nature is endowed with certain 
instincts and involuntary movements as perfect at first as 
they ever can be in the present state of being, and it is to 
this category that the intelligent principle belongs. The 
attempt, therefore, to cultivate in the sense of organic 
expansion would be as absurd as to aim at promoting the 
growth of the body after it had arrived at maturity. 
Besides, such analogies overlook the character of knowl- 
edge ; its immense power is thrown into the shade hj this 
fancied modification of mind. Education imparts a knowl- 
edge of facts which enable their possessor to do what to 
the uninitiated seems entirely superhuman. Hence very 
naturally arose the story that the first printer was a 
magician. A mind thus fui'nished with knowledge, hj 
means of which it can apply itself with such extensive at:d 
surprising effect, may be considered improved in the only 
sense in which that term is applicable to its nature. 

This subject appears not to have attracted the notice of 
metaphysicians ; and the only authority which I am able 
to adduce from any source in sup'port of the position here 
assumed, is the following. " Self-knowledge, indeed, does 
not enlarge or increase our natural capacities, but it guides 
and regulates them ; leads us to the right use and apphea- 
tion of them, and removes a great many things which 
obstruct their due exercise; as pride, prejudice, and 
passion, fyc, which oftentimes so miserably pervert the 
rational powers."* 

'I** * Mason on Self-knowledge, Part 2, Chap. 6. Although this is 
affirmed of only one kind of knowledge, the author evidently 
designed it as a general proposition. 



CONSTITUTIOX OF THE MIND. ^y 

C. The acquisitions of the iniad depend upon its own 
exertions. It has been shown that talents cannot Lc orig- 
inated; that the intellectual powers do not derive their 
capacity for improvement from a process of cultivation; 
that external means only facilitate acquisition by enabling 
the student to employ his powers to greater advantage ; 
and, that mental cultivation involves no other responsibility 
or benefit than simply furnishing materials which the mind 
may employ in its future operations. It has also been 
shown that the mind admits of voluntary application over 
and above all its necessary acts. The object now is to 
.show that knowledge is the result of exercise. I shall 
not inquire how the first idea makes its way into the mind, 
nor whether such idea is innate or not ; such an inquiry 
appears to me both useless and absurd. We might as well 
inquire when the first sound fell upon the ear, or the first 
pulsation dilated the heart. Mind began to think when it 
Jxgan to exist, and its thoughts, which we term ideas, can 
?>e traced to no origin but the instinctive activity of its 
cwa nature. Man thinks because he is made a rational 
creature, and he will continue to think while this attribute 
of his constitution remains, however assisted by the sug- 
gestions of sense, or embarrassed by the want of innate 
ability. Rejecting speculations of this kind as too intri- 
cate to be successful, and too profitless to deserve attention, 
we fix upon the far more important question which relates 
to its subsequent advancement. It is not necessary to 
rcr-iark liere by what modification of thought, knowledge 
is luc'st likely to be gained, as that subject must necessarily 
C'.mc up in an other part of this work. Aside from that 
knowledge Avhich is inseparable from a rational being, there 
arc A'ast collections of scientific truth to which the mind 
has only a contingent relation ; they are not among its 
^cccssary, but its possible attainments. That the contin- 



30 SELF EDUCATIOIf. 

gcncy involved ia these acquisitiona is notliing but mental 
exercise, is a proposition Jtlmost too plain for argument, and 
jet it lias been overlooked in practice and in theory, until 
many imagine that knowledge is acquired by some myste- 
rious and unassignable process over which industry has no 
control. The difference in the attainments of different 
individuals may, in part, bo ascribed to a diversity of 
intellectual endowments, and, in some degree, likewise, to 
the character of their opportunities; but the prevailing 
circumstance by which the knowledge of each is determined 
will be found to consist in the extent and judiciousness of 
personal appHcation. Genius and facilities ensui-e an easier 
performance ; and in this case the labor of acquisition is 
abridged but without the least variation of manner. What 
one accomplishes may be wholly beyond the reach of as 
other, although he pursues the same course of intellectual 
accumulation, and would have arrived, uiader other circum- 
Btaneea, at equal knowledge in equal time. But genius 
and mediocrity are thus reduced to a common level ; they 
are equally thrown upon industry for success, and made to 
rely, like the ancient athletes, upon the vigorous use of 
their own powers. The history of the human mind u 
remarkably uniform in this particular. We have not a 
sinofle instance where science has not demanded labor of 
those who attained it, however strong may have been their' 
predispositions, or brilliant their endowments-. In thisr 
respect there is no difference between the mind and the 
body, the law of acquisition being the same to both, and 
neither having any clandestine methods of effecting its 
object. No position will make us rich, independent of 
economy and industry, nor can the mind acquire truth 
aside from that constant and careful toil so invariably 
requisite to the successful pursuit of wealth. 

Forgetful of these obvious facts, and impatient of the 



CONSTITUTION OF THB MIND. ,'>1 

slow process by which wc are conscious our own improYC- 
ment has been made, we arc led to impute the extraordinary 
attainments of genius to chance, or to some raj'sterious and 
unknown law of mental acquisition. Rather than admit 
its accelerated progress over the same ground, we choose 
to conceive of it as having arrived at its position in some 
other way and by some supernatural means. This is to 
imagine a miracle where nothing was wanting but industry. 
Such as have been able to retrace their steps from the 
highest cmincnccg of science, and describe to us the method 
of their ascent, have uniformly said with Newtou, that if 
they had accomplished any thing peculiar it must he 
ascribed solely to -diligence. 

7. The acts of the mind are uniform in manner and 
perfect in nature, but greatly diversified in the character 
of their objects. From this variety of direction, there 
naturally arise the various descriptions of mental character 
to which we give the name of genius, and which arc gen- 
erally supposed to imply some constitutional superioritj-. 
Intellectual parity finds few advocates, though there are 
sufficient reasons for believing that all minds arc endowed 
by nature with about the same degree of strength. This 
conclusion is justified by the actual attainments of every 
rational individual. Here I must again refer to Dr. Brovrn. 
who never, in his searching analysis, loses sight of man's 
original capacities. "If ail human science were to be 
divided, as Rosseau says, into two portions, the one 
comprehending what is common to all mankind, and the 
ether only that stock of truths which is peculiar to tlie 
V, ise and learned, he can scarcely be regarded as deliverinir 
a very extravagant paradox, in asserting that this latter 
portion, which is the subject of so much pride, would seem 
very trifling in comparison of the other. But of thi,- 
greater portion, we do not thir-k, as he triJy savs, parti v 



S2 SELF EDUCATION, 

because the kao'wiedge \Yliicli it compreliencls is acquired 
so very early, that we scarcely remember the acquisition of 
it, and still more, perhaps, boeau-se since knowledge becomes 
remarkable only by its differences, the elements that are 
common in all, like the common quantities in algebraic 
equations, are counted as nothing. 

If we know nothing more of the mind of man, than its 
capacity of becoming acquainted with the powers of so 
vast and so complicated an instrument as that of speech, 
and of acquiring this knowledge in circumstances the most 
unfavorable to the acquisition, without any of the aids, 
which lessen so greatly our labor in acquiring any other 
language far less perfectly in after life ; and amid the con- 
tinual distractions of pains and pleasures, that seem to 
render any fixed effort absolutely impossible. We might, 
indeed, find cause to wonder at a capacity so admirable. 
But when we think of all the other knowledge which is 
acquired at the same time, even by this mind, which we 
have selected as one of the humblest, — what observations 
of phenomena, what inductions, w^hat reasonings down- 
ward, from the results of general observation to particular 
cases that are analagous, must have occurred, and been 
formed, almost unconsciously, into a system of physics, of 
which the reason er himself perhaps, does not think as a 
system, but on which he founds his practical conclusions, 
exactly in the same way as the philosopher applies his 
general principles to the complicated contrivances of 
mechanics, or the different arts. When wo think of all 
this, and know that all this, or at least a great part of all 
this, must have been done, before it could be safe for the 
little reasoner to be trusted, for a single moment, at the 
slightest distance from the parental eye, how astonishing 
does the whole process appear ; and if we had not oppor- 
tunities of observation, and in some measure, too, the con- 



CONSTITUTION OF THE MIND. 33 

6ciou3nos3 of our own mcmorv, in our later acquisitions to 
toll us liow all this has been clone, what a variety of means 
must we conceive nature to have employed, for producing 
so rapidly and so efficaciously, this astonishing result l""*" 
The acquisitions which arc thus unconsciously made by 
every ordinary understanding, arc no less remarkable for 
their character than for their extent, as they comprehend 
facts of every order, from the highest to the lowest that 
can be addressed to the human mind. No greater intellect- 
ual power is requisite than has already been exercised by 
every individual, for there are no harder tasks than have 
already been performed. But, notwithstanding, while 
under the tuition of nature, all minds seem to possess equal 
ability, wo find when left to themselves a m^arkcd disparity 
— or what appears to many as a disparity. Genius is 
regarded as indicating superiority of mind, rather than 
peculiarity of direction. It woTild be idle to deny tliat 
some minds have a peculiar aptitude for particular acqui- 
sitions, but it is no less absurd to suppose that such minds 
are correspondingly great in all other departments of intel- 
lectual effort. This aptitude is by no means the result of 
any uncommon endowment ; for the fact that every mind 
has sufficient capacity while its education is directed solely 
bv nature, shows that the difference in question can not be 
ascribed to a want of constitutional ability. Even the 
weakest mind actually learns enough to demonstrate its 
capacity for tlio highest attaiinncuts. For this reason 
some have denied the existence of genius, and affirmed it 
to be a relic of heathen superstition. True, we arc indebted 
to paganism for the term, but like many others which wo 
li^ve borrowed from the same soiux-e, it no longer retains 
its original meaning. If genius once signified a good or 

*• Piiiljconliy of the Ilunian Mind. Vol. 2. p. 170. 



Si 



SSLJ EDUCATIOK. 



Cril spirit set over each person to direct his life, it now 
signifies only " that aptitude which a man naturally pos- 
sesses to perform well and easily that which others can do 
but indifferently, and with a great deal of pain." Taken 
in this sense, the word is as weU authorized aa any which 
can be applied to the mijid. The difference thus seen and 
acknowledged, may be accounted for without the aid of 
organic inferiority or fabulous genii. It is a difference 
amounting only to varietj' — or, in other words, the difference 
is not one of proportion, but of kind. Equal powers arc 
directed to various objects. This is obvious not only from 
the well-known fact that every person has a genius for 
something, but also from the §till more irresistible truth 
th^t men of genius have no universal ability. It is in but 
one or a few things that they excel others ; in every thing 
else they sink to the common level. How this diversity of 
direction occurs, we are not able, in every instance to 
say, nor is it necessary. Every reader must see tho.t 
R'amercus c?.':.:cs coiiltine their influence here, and it will 
oftea be difficult to determine how far individual habits, or 
hereditary predispositions, or casual circumstances, may 
have contributed to these peculiarities. This view of genius 
is sanctioned by Dr. Johnson, in a passage which occurs in 
his life of Cowley ; only it must be remarked that he makes 
these determining causes consist wholly of accidental occur- 
rences, YY'hereas we think they are much more extensive, 
including corstitutional and hereditary peculiarities, not 
loss than external circumstances. " In the window of his 
mother's apartment lay Sponger's Fairy Queen, in which 
he very early took delight to read, till, by feeling the 
charms of verse, he became, as he relates, irrecoverably a 
poet. Such are the accidents which, sometimes remem- 
bered, and perhaps Boraetimes forgotten, produce that 
particular designation of mind, and propensity for some 



CONSTITUTIOK 0¥ THE MIKD. 3S 

certain science or emploj'ment, which is commonlj caUcd 
genius. The true gcniuB is a mind of large general power?, 
accidentally determined to some particular direction. Sir 
Josliua Reynolds, the great painter of the present age, had 
tlie first fondness for his art excited by the perusal of 
Iliohardson's Treatise." 

Some authors, among whom is Dr. Good, have made 
genius a distinct faculty of the mind. " Genius is that 
faculty which calls forth and combines ideas with great 
rapidity and vivacity, and with an intuitive perception of 
their congruity or incongruity."* But this distinction is 
unnecessary, and partakes too much of the antiquated 
notion of a teutclary divinity. We have seen that all 
persona, while under the tuition of nature, learn with equal 
rapidit}', and hence, notwithstanding the diflbrenccs disco- 
Torable in adult life, we conclude that all possess about the 
same amount of intellectual power, bnf; variously modified. 
Taking this view of the subject we can not regard genius 
as a separate faculty, bccjiusc it denotes only an increased 
activity of all the faculties whenever directed to soroo 
particular object. Genius, tl^en, iqiplies no peculiar or 
extraordinary powers, nor any distinct faculty of the mind. 
but simply some peculiarity of direction by which the 
intellect is enabled to exert itself more successfully iii a 
given pursuit. 

* Book of Nature, 3 Scrie?, Lcc. 1-5. 



CHAPTER n. 

Education. 

Tlie supremacy of hiinvan nature is one of mind. Man 
with uo more knowledge than a brute would be as power- 
less. His constitution as a rational being, gives liim au 
iaevitable superiority over the lower orders of animal 
existence; but he is also capable of diversified and exten- 
sive attainments which can only result from a voluntary 
application of his faculties. This application and its 
rcs'jits wc are accustomed to denominate cducaiicu. The 
term is derived from a Latin word educo, which siguiucs 
"to nourish," "to bring up," "to draw out," "to teach 
or instruct." These definitions obviously include the two- 
fold idea of organic development and scientific acquisition. 
Eut it is one thing to determine the etymological import of 
a word, and an other to fix precisely the character of the 
facts of which it is made the representative ; for it is well 
known that words are not always used with strict regard 
to their original meaning, nor applied alone to things which 
a4"0 clearly understood. In the present instance there can 
bo no dispute as to the different meanings which the 
oiiginal word vrill boar, but it may well be questioned 
wlictlier these are all equally applicable to tlic subject of 
mental impruvcment. Education is gcnerallj' imdcrstoid 
to aim no less at invigorating the intellectual faculties, than 
at imparting useful knowledge ; both objects are consid- 
ered legitimate, if not necessary results of the process. 
But if these faculties neither need nor admit of anv direct 



EDUCATION. 37 

cultivation, as I have stated in the previous chapter, it 
follows that the prevalent o[,)iinon is uiifouvidecl and ought 
to give })Irtce to a mure philosophical csthnato of the human 
intellect. The notion of organic improvement carries -with 
it a discouraging tendency inasmuch as it represents the 
mind to he nothing, or next to nothing, . until it has Lecn 
expanded and strengthened by education — an idea mere 
absurd than would be the supposition that vre had no eyes 
until they were elicited and brought to maturity by the 
action of light and the process of vision. In the latter 
case GUI' eyes would still be provided for by an arrarge- 
inent of nature, though somewhat delayed; but ia the 
former case, mind, overlooked by providence, becomes 
s.;lely the creature of education — that is to say the noblest 
attribute of man is not original, but acquired. It is 
remarkable that the prevailing system of education affords 
no countenance to this absurdity. Every science taught 
in our schools, has been introduced for the ostensible reason 
that it relates to useful facts. No object is formally pur- 
sued but the acquisition of science. Accordingly the 
progress of the student is usually facilitated regardless of 
the effect which his attainments may have upon his mind ; 
ho studies to know things, and knowing them, nothing 
more either is or ought to be required. Some sciences, it 
i.? true, have been thought to exert a more powerful influ- 
ence than others in disciplining the mind ; but this 
discipline is never formally attempted because the practical 
philosophy of mankind repels thcii* speculative errors. 
The difference of effect is owing to the nature of the 
several truths themselves, or to the method in which thoy 
are acquired, and not to any organic power which they aitj 
able to impart to the mind. Perhaps no class of men 
ever studied more profoundly than the ancient schoolmen ; 
and yot the trifling character of their inquiries rendered 



38 SELJ? SDUOATICN. 

them powerless in their own and ridiculous in everj 
succeeding age. Had their minds been wisely directed, 
had the facts about which they employed such endless 
industry, possessed any real importance, the Reformation 
might have dated back three centuries, and names now 
little less than infamous have shown resplendent in the 
annals of science. Truth is powerful because it enables 
the mind to do what ignorance had made impossible. 
What we impute to discipline belongs only to knowledge ; 
it is the same intellect acting with greater advantages — the 
same agent employed under more favorable circumstances. 
The mode of studying some sciences — a mode rendered 
necessary by their abstract nature, doubtless requires 
greater attention as well as more careful observation, and 
thus by employing the mind more fully, adds corresponding 
advantage, without any increase of essential power. 

I am obliged, therefore, to conclude that knowledge is 
the principal object of education. Science is to be culti- 
vated, and not the mind. In the invention and acquisition 
of science, there is an ample field for tlp.e best rjbilitics of 
human nature, and a field where each is competent to act 
without the aid of previous preparation. He who is 
furnished with knowledge acquired by his own industry, is 
to be considered as educated, and his education is valuable 
or vforthless just in proportion to the character of the facts 
which be has learned. Mere assistance docs not vary the 
case ; science may be improved and the labor of acquisition 
abridged ; but the nature of the practical effort, and of iU 
attendant effects, is unchanged. The manner, as well as; 
the matter of otir scientific pursuits must be estimated 
solely by its tendency to enrich the mind with useful' 
knowledge. 

Education includes the means no less than the end — thft 
application of the mind no less than tho knowledge bj 



EDTJCATIOH. 39 

which it is sure to be rewarded. Aa in all other instancc3, 
•so in this, we find a consf ant connection between cause and 
effect. The common theory which ascribes our attain- 
ments, in part, to an increased constitutional ability, docs 
indeed assign a cause, but one that is wholly imaginary. 
la the true spirit of conjectural philosophy, it overlook.? 
the real and simple cause to fix upon one more imposing in 
a fiction of its own creation. Mental activity is an 
invariable condition of knowledge. Mind must think in 
order to know, and probably must know whenever it thinks. 
Thus a ])rocess of thought becomes an indispensable part 
of education, and the mind by a voluntary observation of 
truth, is seen to collect those treasures of science so essen- 
tial to its dignity and usefulness. Dilligence here often 
displays itself iii favor of mediocrity of talents, while 
genius, regardless of the law of improvement, and uncon- 
eciaus of its relative superiurity, or vainly relying upon its 
powers, falls behind through idleness. Wc must not, 
however, suppose that cduc'^tion i.^ intended to teach tha 
mind how to think. Such assistance n^ust be superfluous, 
as natui'c furnished the requisite skill for eveiy intellectual 
process, when it formed the ipind a cogitative being. Then 
the power of thought was placed beyond the reach cf 
contingency, and to education was assigned the luimbler 
office of directing, in some measure, the application of 
ovs faculties. 

From these observations it is evident that education 
begins with the first and ends only with the last attempt 
4o learn. Buf we usually employ the term to express those 
acquisitions of kiiowledge which are the result of a moro 
special application of the intpUectual powers. Such efforts 
are made at school, and hence we properly speak of acqui- 
ring education at places of this kind; not that we can 
acquire it no where else, for that would be to suppose 



40 SELF EDUCATIOIJ. 

eitlier that we had no minds excopt at school, or that they 
were useless in every other place. An attempt to confine 
the nsc of the word to such acquisitions as are made at 
school, can only have the effect to destroy its meaning. 
With many education has now become altogether an 
ambiguous term in consequence of its being so frequently 
misapplied. According to present usage the dunce who 
passes a few years in some literary institution is considered 
educated; while the talented and faithful, but secluded 
student, may spend his whole life in intellectual pursuits, 
and yet die uneducated. Judged by this rule, such men 
as Franklin, Bunyan, Baxter and Shakspeare, had no 
education ; they are believed to have been persons of great 
mind and great industry, but cannot be allowed a place 
among educated men. And the sapient critic, as he points 
to some defect in the character of these mighty dead, dees 
not fail to suggest as an extenuating circumstance, their 
peculiar disadvantages in never having received an adequate 
education. Such distinctions, if not invidious, are ex- 
tremely puerile ; they offend no less against common sense 
than against common courtesy. This studied perversion 
Vy'iil correct itself, as it can liave no other effect than to 
dismiss the word altogether from among the important 
terms of our language, and leave it as the representative 
of those inferior considerations to v>'hich carelessness or 
caprice would evidently consign it. 

From the same source and with only a trifling abate- 
ment of iliiberality comes the use of the epithets, regular 
and irregular, as applied to education. How education 
can be otherwise than regular is incumbent upon them to 
show who persist in such a mode of speaking. Mental 
application may be unsteady, and the knowledge obtained 
may be deficient or worthless ; but both the application 
and the knowledge — the labor and its proceeds, so fai- as 



EDUCATION. 41 

tlieyexteiicl, are iticvitably as regular in this instance as 
ia any other. There is an obvious impropriety in all 
such expressions because they assume that the ordinary 
course of education is the standard; thus making the 
sanction of the schools essential to knowledge, and destroy- 
ing at once the independence and competence of our 
faculties. We are not disposed to call in question the 
excellence of the present system ; it is only its exclusivenci s 
that vc oppose. The fact that science may be learned at 
school does by no means prove that it can not be learned 
elsewhere, and learned too with equal advantage. 

If these remarks are true, the popular system of educa- 
tion, hoAvever excellent, must be in a great measure 
incidental; and such vre have reason to believe it is 
considered to be by those who are best acquainted %vith it. 
It is but one among many possible systems of equal and 
perhaps superior excellence, though based upon the same 
practical principles. The acquisition of knowledge is the 
great object, and whatever conduces to this, whether it is 
literature or the want of literature, the presence or absence 
of any assignable advantage or disadvantage, is a means of 
education, and valuable j ust in proportion to its efSciency 
in accomplishing the desired result. All that the prevalent 
system of instruction can claim, is that it aids to seme 
extent in this work ; it pretends to no sovereign efficiency, 
nor can it boast of any triumph over constitutional imped- 
iments. Its aim is to be a servant of mind, and aid it in 
gathering the treasures of science by means of those 
faculties, which without some foreign assistance, are too apt 
to lie concealed even from their possessor and useless both 
to him and the world. 

c 



CHAPTER nr. 

Self Fdiicatioii. 

We liave slio-R-n in wliat education consists ; but that 
particular form of it now under consideration, as the sub- 
ject of this volume, requires still further notice. The 
common opinion seems to be that self- education is distin- 
guished by nothing but the manner of its acquisition. It 
is thought to denote simply acquirements made without a 
teacher, or at all events without oral instruction — advan- 
tages always comprehended in the ordinary course of 
education. But this merely negative circumstance, how- 
ever important, falls far short of giving a full view of the 
subject; it is only one of several particulars equally 
characteristic of self-education as contrasted with the 
popular system. Besides the absence of many, or of all 
the usual facilities for learning, there are at least three 
things peculiar to this enterprise, namely : the longer time 
required, the wider range of studies, and the higher char- 
acter of its objects. 

Our schools claim only a few years; they graduate 
students after a comparatively limited time, and never 
again exact lessons from them. It is not so with the Alma 
Mater of the self-educated ; she claims life as the term of 
study and gives instruction to the last. 

The eoui-se of study in our best Uterary institutions is 
far from including all that might profit the student. Re- 
ference is always had to the brevity of the period to which 
his acquisitions must be confined; and as a consequence 



SELy EDUCATION. 43 

luany branches of science, which under other circum- 
stances would have had a place in the list of studies, arc 
necessarily excluded. Self-education, by bringing into 
requisition the whole of our available time, provides for an 
enlargement of the course of study. Its plan is commen- 
surate with human ability, and exceeds the popular .standard 
by all that the mind is capable of acquiring beyond the 
tasks imposed upon it at school. 

In the schools, as at present constituted, all acquisitions 
are confined to pre-established science. No effort is made 
to enlarge the boundaries of knowledge, nor is there any 
ambition to do more than fairly understand what othere 
have written. This is an unavoidable trait of such insti- 
tutions ; it is impossible to infuse into them a spirit of 
iavention and discovery without weakening too much that 
reverence for authority, on wliich their dignity depends. 
Schools are organized solely for the diffusion of knowledge, 
not for its improvement. Their highest object is to tread 
undcviatingly in the beaten path of science, without once 
entertaining those perplexing questions which address 
themselves to such as are engaged in original enquiries. 
But the lijnits of self- education are far from being thus 
restricted. In addition to cultivating an acquaintance 
with the attainments of former scholars, the student is 
exp^ected to extend his researches to new departments of 
knowledge. The known and the unknown are equally 
legitimate objects of pursuit ; they are both embraced in 
the same comprehensive design, and thus united constitute 
a task worthy of the intellectual faculties. 

Now although all these co-ordinate points of distLiction 
are necessary to a complete survey of this subject, yet we 
do not wish to be understood that the question is not one 
of much consequence, even when considered as involving 
nothing but the mode of attainment. Let the schools be 



•ii SELF EDUCATION. 

taken as the standard, and it becomes desirable to know 
Tyhetlier the knowledge which they dispense can be obtained 
by other means. If it can not, then we are obliged to 
admit as a principal in mental philosophy, that the powers 
of the mind are measurably dependent upon these institu- 
tions. This being the case, those who are shut out from 
such advantages must of necessity acquiesce in an inferior 
scholarship. Considered in this light alone the question 
is one of more than ordinary interest. It is however only 
by advancing to the other peculiarities which have been 
mentioned, that we can perceive the true dignity of self- 
education. Its means, its plans, its objects, to be fully 
appreciated, must be compared with the more circumscribed 
scheme of popular education. Regarded in this connection 
it no longer appears doubtful and imperfect — a questionable 
substitute for scholastic facilities; but it assumes an eleva- 
tion which the artificial system can at best but feebly 
approximate. It becomes the great method — the exclusive 
method of improving science ; and it opens to the mind 
the only field sumcientlY extensive for the exertion of its 
abiUties. Certainly in this riew, the correctness of which 
can not be disputed, we may justly say with a late writer, 
that "The subject is one of immense importance. If 
language contains one word that should be familiar— one 
subject we should wish to understand— one end on which 
we should be bent — one blessing we should resolve to make 
our own— that word, that subject, that end, that blessing 
should be in the broadest sense of the expression, self- 
improvement. This is alike the instinct of nature, the 
dictate of reason, the demand of religion. It is inwoven 
with aU to which it is possible, either to aspire or to rise. 
It appeals to us as men— caUs us to the highest and nobles* 
end of man— reminding us that God's image is upon us, 
and that as men we may be grea^ in every possible position 



SELF EDUCATION. 45 

of life. It tells us that tlie grandeur of our nature, if we 
will but improve it, turns to insignificance all outward 
distiuctions ; that our powers of knowing and feeling and 
lovbig — of perceiving the beautiful, the true, the right, the 
good — of knowing God, of acting on ourselves and on 
external nature, and on our follow beings — that these are 
glorious prerogatives, and that in them all there is no 
assignable limit to our progress."* Such is self- education. 

• Rev. Trj-on Edwards, American Bib. Repos., Jan. 1841. 



CHAPTEK IV. 

Fraeticabiiity of Self Ediicatioii. 

That self- education ia practicable, must appear from 
rarious sources. So evident indeed ia this fact, that the 
purpose of this chapter is illustration rather than argument. 
According to the view just exhibited, it assumes the 
character of a self-evident truth, and as such demands 
investigation but not proof. The following are the prin- 
cipal sources relied upon for supporting the position 
here taken. 

1. The nature of education. Education is the eiFoet of 
mental industry du'ectcd to the acquisition of science. 
Now we must admit that self-education is practicable, or 
deny that the mind is capable of thinking without the aid 
of a teacher. 

2. Faculties of the mind. These are natural endow- 
ments, brought to perfection, like our physical powers, 
without the aid of human culture, and operating intuitively 
with unimprovable esactness. Such faculties place educa- 
tion within the reach of all, and make the customary 
facilities for learning, matters of mere convenience, which 
may safely bo dispensed with whenever circumstances 
require. Powers of this instinctive and pro-existent 
character cannot consist with mental vassalage except upon 
the condition of voluntary acquiescence on the part of their 
possessor, 

3. Condition under which all original scientific piirsuits 



I>RACTICAniLITr. 47 

arc prosecuted. I speak not now of acquisitions made at 
school, for in these institutions neither students nor teach- 
ers often aim at originality. But there are other if not 
higher iutcllcctual researches constantly developed upon 
the mind under circumstances which do not admit of the 
aids of supervision. Not to mention that we arc ushered 
into a world where much of onr success even in common 
affairs depends upon our own unaided powers of observa- 
tion, it is obvious that ©very scientific improvement nrjst. 
be the effect of self-directed energy. That which is net 
known can not be taught ; therefore if we have any thing 
new in science, it will be the result of original and indepen- 
dent efforts. Could all be satisfied with things as they 
now are, and yield themselves to one unvarying course of 
instruction, then the mind might always be guided by 
authority, and the schools would become the chief dispen- 
sers of knowledge. But this can not be. Science rau&t 
advance beyond its present position, and every step of its 
progress will be the triumph of individual genius over tho 
didactic art. Our schools do not originate science, and 
the different branches taught in them are contributions 
from the intellectual wealth of the sohtary student. In- 
Btruction is confined to principles already established, and 
pupilage ceases where invention begins. Hence it follow? 
that self-education is as practicable as tho search of truth, 
and every science is a monument of its success. 

4. Incompetency of schools to furnish the rcquisito 
knowledge. That literary and scientific institutions can 
teach what they profess to teach, we have no doubt; that 
much of what they teach is profound and useful, it would 
be folly to deny. Still there arc departments of knowledge 
in which tliey are obviously unable to afford instruction, 
because the attainments of those who would be pupils aro 
far in advance of these who must be teachers. V/hat 



4B ^ELF EDUCATION!. 

college or university could have instructed Copernicus m 
astronomy, ' Galileo in optics, Columbus in navigation, 
Sliakspeare in |)oetry, Locke in meteplijsics, or Newton in 
matliematics ? We are aware that some of these men had 
been educated at college, but the exalted acquirements 
which have handed their names down to posterity were not 
the fruits of college life. In every thing peculiar to them, 
or in any way affecting their greatness, Locke or Newton 
■'S'-ere as really "self-educated as Columbus and Shakspeare. 
These men aspired to what was unknown in their times ; 
their researches extended beyond the supposed boundaries 
of science. No institution could either aid their inquiries 
or determine the propriety of their course. From this it 
is evident that the highest and moat successful efforts of 
the miud are necessarily independent of tuition. And if 
the noblest achievements of which the intellect is capable, 
cAn be accomplished without a teacher, may not every 
inferior task be easily, performed in the same manner ? In 
a word, if able to originate science, may net the mind 
readily acquire that which others have originated ? 

5. Incidental character of the assistance afforded by 
schools. The diligent student, although pursuing his 
gtudics at school, will in fact be self-educated, for his 
teachers have nothing to do but hear him recite. He 
repeats in their hearing what he had learned alone, and as 
much alone, as if such an institution had never existed. 
It is not, therefore, too much to assert that a thorough 
student is necessarily his own instructor. His industry 
renders assistance superfluous,* and pushes him forward 

• An early tutor of Sir Walter Scott notes this particular in the 
education of that extraordinary man. "Though, like the reet of 
UiC children, i^laced under my tuition, the conducting of his educa- 
lion comparatively cost me but Utile trouble, being, by the quickness 
of his intellect, tenacity of memory, and dilligcnt application to 



rUACTIOAIJTLtTY. 49 

faster than the current of instruction could carry Lira, or 
than will allow liim to profit by ita favoring tendencies. 

But even the dullest and most dependent scholar 
receives oidy an incidental and unimportant advantage 
from the office of instruction. His time, his attention, bis 
memory and his judgment must be in constant requisition 
in order to gain the knowledge which he is supposed 
passively to imbibe. And yet these requisites comprise 
every thing essential to self- education. They have given 
us all the sciences which we now possess, and must give us 
all that wo are hereafter to possess. The dependence 
which is created by leaning upon a teacher, seems to 
include nothing more than the difference in facility of com- 
prehension between written and oral directions. That is, 
the advantage of the one is as much greater than that of 
the other, as a man can teach better than a book ; it is the 
simple dili'ereiice between writing and speaking. This, to 
be sure, is conceding the fact that every book is a teacher, 
and tliat those who have access to books are never without 
a competent instructor ; yet the use of books has become 
80 common that they have ceased to be looked upon in this 
light, and are regarded merely as pre-re([uisitcs to instruc- 
tion. Ilencc they arc employed in schools as much as iQ 
private, and the sphere of the living teacher is reduced to 
bearing recitatir)ns, or, in more general terms, to secuiing 
on tbc part of tlic student a thorough acquaintance with 
such standard works as are embraced in his course. If an 
author can bo uuderitood without additional assistance, 

gtiidics, rrcncrally cqna', of himself, to the acrjiiisilion of tb.ose tasks 
I or otiicrs prcgcribed to him. So that Mas'cr Walter might 
be regarded not so much as a pupil of niino, but as a friend and » 
companion, and I may add, as an assistant also." Lockhart's Lifo 
of Sir Walter Scolt, Vol. 1, p. SG, 



50 SELF EDUCATION, 

then the labors of an other teacher are not noce^ary, and 
may be dispensed with whenever convenience requires. 
Of the possibility of dispensing even with books, wo shall 
Bpeak in an other place. 

6. History of literature. Education has never flourish- 
ed in proportion to the multiplicity of schools. Its foun- 
dation lies deeper in hxxman character than can be reached 
by such a cause. Literature and science are rarely pur- 
sued because they can be ; a higher motive is requisite ; 
a motive, the inspiration of which will render assistance 
useless, and set difficulties at defiance. The origin of 
literature 13 l?nried ia the de^p shades of antiquity, a,nd 
we shall forever remain ignorant of the exact circumstan- 
ces under which it arose ; but this is the less to be regretted 
since its progress, with which we are familiar, must involve 
the very same principles which originally gave esistence to 
the art of writing. Under certain circumstances individ- 
uals and nations have always devoted themselves assidu- 
ously to the cultivation of letters. This event has 
occurred cither when superior talents have discovered the 
need of learning, or when popular energy has by degrees 
mellowed communities from barbarism into refinement. 
Literature is one of the results of activity— of that 
general activity on which all improvement depends. It is 
remarked by Mr. Kcightley, that many of the best works 
have been produced in times of great excitement. " Though 
we can not conclude that literary genius is the creation of 
political circumstances, yet we may observe that it usually 
appears synchronously with great political events. It was 
during the Persian and Peloponnesian wars, that the ever- 
lasting monuments of the Grecian muse were produced ; 
end it was while the fierce wars escited by religion agitated 
modern Europe, that the most noble works of poetio 
genius appeared in Italy, Spain and England. So also the 



PRACTICABILITY, 51 

first band of Roman poets were co-csistcnt with the Punic 
wars, and the second and more glorious, though perhaps 
less vigorous dis]»lay of Italian genius, rose amid tho 
calamities of the civil wars."* Arabic literature flourished 
during the Saracenic conquests, but has ever since declined ; 
and Cbinosc literature, together with that of most Eastern 
nations, is evidently a legacy handed down from moro 
enterprising times — its present possessors not being able 
to make any improvements, nor even to maintain tho 
original trust unimpaired. 

Learning is a commodity which tho ignorant and tho 
idle do not want, and whatever may be the facilities for itg 
attainment, such persons can not be successfully persuaded 
to seek it; they have other and more congenial pursuits, 
rcquhing less of tho mind, and answering better the pur- 
pcsos of immediate gratification. Schools have rendered 
literature more accessible, but they have added nothing to 
the force of those convictions on which enterprise depend?, 
and hence are to bo reckoned only as an arrangement of 
secondary character — as a dictate of invincible purpose. 
It is from this purpose which can alwajs command tho 
means for its own accomplisliment, that literature eman- 
ates, and not from our halls of learning. A cause wliich 
thus produces at once both science and its facilities, is 
surely equal to self-education. 

7. Successful examples of sclf-oducatcd men. Had it 
been ever so impossible in theory to trace the caiisc of 
education to any other source than that of scholastic insti- 
tutions, stUl the numberless examples of self- education 
would have effectually contradicted such a conclusion. 
Both in ancient and modern times a very largo proportion 
of distinguished names are found to have risen to emincnco 

• Kfightlcy'a History of the Roman Empire, Part 1, Chap. 1, 



'J^ SEL? EDUCATION, 

by their own unaided exertions, and often in spite of yet 
greater disadvantages from positive opposition. It can 
not be expected that from a list so extensive, we slionld 
Belect more than a few instances on the present occasion, 
and these will be taken from the moderns, as their history 
is best known. 

Shakspeare, who stands confessedly at the head of 
dramatic literature, and who is one of the boldest, most 
profound, and most correct writers of any age, was alto- 
gether his own instructor. It is true that the events of 
bis early life are not well known, but enough is known to. 
render it certain that the elevated conceptions and iuimi- 
table style which have immortalized his writings, were no6 
the gift of academic shades, nor of pedagogic toil. 

Pope ranks high in the first class of original poets, and 
is justly acknowledged to be first among the translators of 
poetry. But he assumed from choice, not necessity, the 
responsibility of edacating himself — a task well executed 
if enduring fame may be taken as the measure of success. 
Dr. Johnson thus alludes to the subject : " Pope, finding 
little advantage from external help, resolved thenceforward 
to direct himself, and at twelve formed a plan of study 
which he completed with little other incitement than the 
desire of excellence."* 

Thomas Simpson, one of the ablest mathematicians that 
E-urope has produced, and the author of several valuable 
treatises, was entirely self-taught. 

Defoe, whose name is familiar to most readers by his 
tjnrivalled tale of Robinson Crusoe, was an extensive and 
elegant writer, but independent of scholastic training. 

Sir William Herschel contributed more than any other 
modern astronomer to that department of science, 

* Lifu of Pope. 



PRACTICABILITY. 53 

although he was from first to last his own teacher, and the 
maker of all his toloscopcs. 

Sir Himiphrcy Davy not only mastered the soicJJcc of 
chemistry without assistance, but extended his researches 
until important additions were made to that department 
of knowledge. 

Dr. Franklin's eminence as a statesman and a philosopher 
is a3 little questionable as the fact of his being entirely 
self-educated. 

Dr. John Mason Good was a scholar of the highest 
order in almost every department of science ; iu medicine, 
in natural science, in classical and in oriental Uterature, 

An other of similar acquirements, except, perhaps, in 
medicine, and the last to which I shall now refer, v.as the 
late Dr. Adam Clarke. This eminent man was no lesa 
distinguished for oriental than for classical literature. Hia 
proficiency in almost every science was too well known to 
leave a doubt of his being one of the maturest scholars of 
the age. But these, like the rest of the individuals hero 
mentioned, received no assistance from colleges or uni- 
versities. These examples are quite sufficient to show 
that education is within the reach of determined industry, 
whatever may be the paucity of external advantages. 

There is however another class of learned men who 
properly belong to this category ; I mean those who for 
various reasons left the University without finishirg their 
studies, or who were eminent before entering there. Among 
the former are Lord Bacon, Gibbon the historian, and Sir 
"Walter Scott; the first two having left the University 
through disgust, and the last, that he might ajiply himself 
more particularly to his legal studies. That this designa- 
tion does no injustice to Sir Walter, we have the very 
decided testimony of Mr. Lockhart. " As may be said, 
I believe, with perfect truth of every really great man, 



\ 



51 



SELF EDUCATION. 



Scott was self-educated in every branch of knowledge 
which he ever turned to account in the works of his 
geuius."* Among the latter are Grotius, Johnson, Jlur- 
ray, and Gifford. One of the works of Grotius, written 
prior to his entering the University, is said to be equal to 
any which he afterwards published. Dr. Johnson gives 
us the following statement of his early attainments. " It 
is a sad reflection, but a true one, that I knew almost as 
much at eighteen as I do now. My judgment, to be sure, 
was not so good ; but I had all the faets."t Dr. Alexander 
Blui-ray and William Gilford, both gained for themselves 
places, the one in a Scotch, and the other in an Enghsh 
University, solely by the merit of their unquestionable and 
unaided scholarship, 

8. The nature of science. "We have shown that the 
faculties of the mind have a pecuhar competency for the 
reception of truth — an aptitude which neither adm.it s 
material improvement, nor needs it-. This fact naturally 
teaches us to look for a corresponding adaptation of 
science to these faculties, and the slightest observation is 
sufficient to show that the character of this relation is 
reciprocal Knowledge is the food which satiates our 
intellectual appetency and gives strength to the mind — not 
indeed organic capacity, but supphes the means by which 
organic capacity becomes efficient. Hence the pleasures 
of science, or the attractive influences of truth, have ever 
been considered one of the principal inducements to study. 
Milton's elegant description of these dehghts is familiar 
to all. " We shall conduct you to a hill side, laborious, 
indeed, at the first ascent ; but else so smooth, so green, 

* Life of Scott, Vol. 1, p. 104. 

+ Boswell's Life of Johnson, Vol. 2, p. 44. Johnson entered at 
Oxford ia his nineteenth year. 



PKACTICABlLITr. 55 

SO full of goodly prospects, and melodious sounds on every 
side, that the harp of Orpheus was not more charming."* 
It is further to be remarked that the truths of science 
are level to all observers. Education gives no new facul- 
ties, nor does it essentially invigorate those which nature 
has given us. The elements of knowledge, the facts 
which make up every science, are intuitively obvious to 
the diligent mind. All may perceive them who will take 
the pains, as labor alone is the price of their acquaintance. 
They are like a favorite view which can be had only from 
the summit of some lofty mountain, but which is ccpally 
within the reach of all whose industry surmounts the 
rugged ascent. Capacity for such acquisitions is mani- 
festly co-extensive with common sense. There is no fact 
in science either above the comprehension or beyond the 
reach of an ordinary intellect. Religion presents us with 
truths more profound and more important than human 
research has ever gleaned from the study of nature ; and 
yet the mind of man — of man through all the grades of 
intellectual character, down to where responsibility is lost 
in mental weakness — is competent not only to understand, 
but to carry into successful practice the highest principles 
of revelation. This shows us that things are not difficult 
of apprehension in proportion to their importance. It 
requu'es no more strength of mind to understand the 
highest than the lowest truth ; we comprehend truths 
without reference to their intrinsic character. The idea 
that great truths can only be known to great minds, would 
forever exclude the knowledge of God from all but a 
fraction of our race. Such a conclusion is no less subver- 
sive of philosophy than revolting to religion. There is 
therefore, nothing impracticable in the nature of science ; 

• • Tractate on Education. 



5G SELP EDUCAXlOJSf. 

it can neither Toe monopolized by the learned, nor lost tot 
want of prc-recpisites on the part of the student. 'Did 
truth disclose itself only to minds previously developed 
according to the popular notion, then education would he 
the formation of capacities, and industry could avail 
nothing for want of constitutional povrer. But, except as 
one fact may help to know an other, the learned have no 
pre-eminence abore what nature has conferred. The nat- 
ural er^uality of human understandings is not disturbed by 
the aC'.|nisitions of diligence, and hence we very frequently 
see those who have little of what is called learning, malcing 
important discoveries, while the more learned vrasto their 
time in fi-uitless speculations. This could not be if science- 
was accessible only in one direction, or if the usual prelim- 
inaries were of more than incidental importance. 

9. Analogy. In every other pursuit mankind are 
necessarily self- directed; and it is singular indeed if the 
acquisition of knowledge violates the analogy which every 
where else obtains in active life. Is man less able to direct 
his mental than his physical energies ? or, rather, is he less 
able to direct the energies of his mind when applied to the 
acquisition of science, than when applied to the acquisition 
of physical objects ? Vf e must either suppose that some 
fatality attends the use of his faculties in the one instance 
from which they are free in the other, or admit that he is- 
equally competent whether the objects of his action are 
physical or intellectual. The only school for gi'eat achieve- 
ments is the common theatre of hnman enterprise, where 
every man is a master, and all are learners. The agricul- 
turist, the mechanic, the statesman, and the warrior are 
thrown upon their own resources, and compelled to act, not 
only without direction, but frequently in opposition to the 
maturest counsel. In the highest department of science — ■ 
that of invention, the same necessity prevails. Nothing 



PRACTICABILITY. 57 

can be done until the mind acts for itself independent of all 
authority. Even where much less than this is aimed at, 
science obliges all her votaries to an independent course. 
If they would throw themselves forward to future ages, it 
can only be by attaining such indisputable excellence as 
will suffer no depreciation from the lapse of time — bv 
e.Kceeding the standard of their own to meet the anti- 
cipated progress of future generations — by successful 
competition with the past; the present, and the future. 
That is, instead of following authorities, one must himself 
become an authority in order to secure a lasting refu- 
tation. Such exertions as are required by an enterprise 
like this, can not be the subject of tuition. They demand 
an energy and a knowledge as incommunicable as gen- 
ius itself. Thus we have seen that in all physical pur- 
suits, and in those intellectual operations, which from 
their greatness are removed from the sphere of scholastic 
supervision, the mind is quite equal to the task of self- 
direction, and can not by any possibility, be subjected tu 
pupilage. Under these circumstances, can we conceive it 
to be impracticable for any ordinary intellect to direct its 
own efforts successfully in the pursuit of knowledge, aTid 
especially that kind of knowledge which is usually taught 
in our schools? 

In concluding tin's chapter, I have only to say that if 
these remarks have the appearance of claiming too much 
for self-education, the result was unavoidable. Facta 
admit of no compromise. If the human nilad is iucom- 
petent to this task, it is capable of no other. 
d 



CHAPTER V. 
Tlie Means of Self Education. 

Section I. Literature. 

Language is the veliicle of thouglit. It is more : it is 
the repository of the knowledge of a people, as well as a 
means of intellectual conveyance. An accurate acquaint- 
ance, therefore, with the structure of language, and espe- 
cially with the specific import of its various terms, is an 
important part of education. The meaning of words is, 
to some extent, the key of knowledge, and thus far taken 
as a separate study, it is more profitable, if not mor& 
interesting, than any other pursued. A written language 
is but a collection of artificial signs, the arrangement of 
which, according to certain prescribed forms, amounts to 
nothing, if their true signification be not understood. 

Literary education has its numerous gradations ; begin- 
ning with a single alphabet, it knows no limit but the ca- 
pacity of man. But those who think, because it is possi- 
ble to spend a whole life in making acquisitions of this 
sort, that it is, therefore, necessary to eminence, have 
manifestly mistaken the process of preparation for tbe 
splendor of action. Language is, indeed, subservient to 
the formation of thought, as well as to its clear expression ; 
it is a system of signs by which we both receive and 
transmit opinions ; and it is true, in a certain sense, that 
tho more language we have, the more we have of truth. 



UEANS. 69 

and if it were as easy to determine the nature of things 
by means of language, as it is to obtain a knowledge of 
their existence, the value of letters would be inconceivably 
enhanced. This, however, is not the case, for we read 
what is false as well as what is true; nor will reading 
alone, like the reiterated use of mathematical terms, infal- 
libly secure the necessary correction. Words are the 
representatives of ideas, and if the ideas are wrong, their 
siirns can never be right, that is, the words in this connec- 
tion become the visible exhibitions of falsehood. Written 
language has often been compared to algebraical char- 
acters, but the comparison is without foundation ; for the 
signs in the one case are expressive of the unchangeable 
relations of c^uantity or number, while in the other they 
represent thought, which is not only changeable, but often 
imperfect and contradictory. The remark of Coudillac,* 
that "the art of reasoning is nothing more than a language 
well arranged," must be received with great limitation, if 
indeed, it be true in any respect. Sound arguments may 
undoubtedly be expressed in verbal language, but no argu- 
ment can be stronger than the mind which forms it, nor 
any language better arranged than to convey the ideas of 
the speaker. Reason depends upon language for nothing 
but the means of expression, and expression arises not 
from the nature of terms, but from the use we make of 
them — the meaning which they are employed to convey. 

As literature is only of conditional and limited import- 
ance to the reasoning process, we may justly infer that the 
other acts of the mind are equally independent of its 
advantages. What has been considered the standard of 
desirable attainments in one age, has been regarded in the 
next as the merest illiteracy. But the practical and 

• Quoted by Stewart, Elem. PLil. Vol 1., p. 3'3. 



60 SELF EDUCATION. 

beneficial results of tliis species of learning bear no pro- 
portion to its extent or to the facilities for its attainment. 
The greatest advantages have not iinfrequentlj effected 
nothing but a life of fruitless speculation, or it may be, 
fabricated a succession of puerile fictions, which, aiming 
to be more true to nature than nature is to herself, have, 
of course, accomplished nothing but distortion, while 
necessity has awakened the slumbering energies of the 
poor and the unfortunate to achievements to which more 
refined inducements have seldom been equal. The facts 
which confirm these remarks may be found in the copious 
literary remains of antiquity, as well as among the teem- 
ing productions of our own age. Anciently the means of 
acquiring literature were so universally imperfect, com- 
pared with what is now deemed essential to such pursuits, 
that nearly every writer of eminence ranks as a prodigy ; 
nor is there any method of bringing their talents to a 
level with the moderns, but by observations like those 
which we have now made. Let us turn for a moment to 
particular instances. What were the qualifications of 
David for the poetic office ? An intimate acquaintance 
with the best models of the poetic art; a knowledge of 
foreign languages, together with a very critical mastery of 
his vernacular tongue, and a large amount of general sci- 
ence, would seem to be indispensable to the man whose 
business it was to clothe the noblest sentiments in the 
finest dress. But had the bard of Israel gone through 
with this regular training ? What ancient poet did he 
study, or what foreign language could he write ? In what 
school did he study even his own language ? No one who 
has a knowledge of the bearings of the subject ■vvill sug- 
gest that David was inspired, and therefore wrote with 
eloquence and correctness. He would have written with 
the ?ame sublimity and purity, had he been only a piou« 



MEANS. 61 

man. I spoak now of the stylo of his composition, and 
not of the character of its sentiments. He ^vas simply a 
Bhophord boy, until he exchanged his rural occupation for 
the court and the camp, places by no means favorable to 
literary researches. Indeed there is little probability that 
.his attainments embraced more than a tolerable acquaint- 
ance with a single language. The epithet of illiterate 
would sound very harsh if applied to him ; and yet if the 
notions of modern literati arc just, he was a mere sciolist. 
His ju'ctcnsions to the hai'p were the height of imperti- 
nent dabling, and a dism-ace to men of education. He 
should have repressed the vehement fires of poetic thought 
until his genius had become improved by scholastic lore. 
Others are chargeable with a hke folly. Moses and 
Miriam, and Deborah, Job and Solomon, and above all, 
Isaiah, have left specimens of their taste and ability for 
cooipositions of this sort. 

The next example of course must be Homer, at once 
the oldest and the greatest of heathen poets. Of his 
personal history we have no certain information ; but this 
fact only adds to our astonishment, as it shows us that 
his immortal works must have been written while literature 
was yet too imperfectly diffused, or too miserably deficient 
to preserve even the humblest record of so distinguished 
a genius.* From whom then could Homer have learned 

* Some Iiave maintained that his works were composed before 
the art of writing was invented. " It has been doubted whether 
Homer could write or read ; and the arguments adduced for the 
negative, in Mr. Wood's Essay on the Original Genius of Homer, 
seem scarcely controvertible." Mitford's History of Greece, Vol. 
1, p, 126. In every thing but his poems. Homer is as much a 
mythological personage as any of the heroes whom he celebrates. 
Herodolus, the oldest of the Greek historians, gives us nothing 
but conjecture; he says (Book 2, chap, 53.) "Homer, I believe, 
lived four hundred years, and not more, before myself." His works 



G2 SELF EDUCATION. 

the art of poetry, and wliat beyond tlie simplest know- 
ledge of his own language could have been his attainments ? 
What literary institution had any share in his education? 
What classic author contributed to purify his taste, to 
direct his judgment, or to control his imagination ? And 
yet without any aid from any source, he advanced his art 
to such perfection as succeeding ages, with all their accu- 
mulated improvements, have rarely equalled, and never 
surpassed. Still the author of the Hiad and the Odessy 
belongs not to the class of educated men. If the popular 
jargon be correct, he holds a very illegal authority in the 
learned world. Many others of the heathen poets flour- 
ished under circumstances equally forbidding; some of 
them are &o bare of historical incident that their authors 
seem scarcely to have been acquainted with social life. 
Yet with their productions the world is eminently pleased. 
Even Christian sages of the greatest erudition have ex- 
tolled them as priceless. 

It is suflScient for our present purpose that the public 
has given its sanction to the general excellence of these 
works. In doing this it has tacitly said the ancients were 
competent, be their literature as it might. It is not, it is 
surely not without some reason that the refined scholars of 
this age so universally admire such writings. But what 
is the circumstance that gives them all their value, if it be 
not that they are true to nature ? Nature is the standard 
and the greatest originality is but faithfully copying from 
her. A glowing theme naturally seeks a corresponding 
expression ; and if the language Ave use is not adequate to 
our wants, nature has a convenient resource in the use of 
figures. The admiration which these works have gained, 

prove that he existed, but this uncertainty shows that it was before 
the age of authentic history. 



MEANS. 63 

is derived from the splendor of genius and the force of 
truth ; not from peculiarity of dialect or felicity of gram- 
matical construction. Such writings are valuable as 
conservators of ancient wisdom, and not as models of 
polished composition. 

Both Grecian and Roman literature, wliich have so 
largely, if not disproportionately occupied the attention of 
mankind, were cultivated under the same disadvantages 
as the Hebrew. The writers of these nations lacked, in 
general, schools and libraries, and, what was worse tlian 
all, science itself. But possessing minds accustomed to 
powerful thought, and using language only as a means of 
communication, they were quite equal to what they as- 
pired — a clear and elegant expression of truth. It may 
be thought their knowledge of grammar, rhetoric, and 
other sciences relating to the composition of language 
must have been considerable, and acquired by studying 
authors of great eminence on these subjects. But this I 
am persuaded is a mistake. "The grammatical forms 
which constitute the organization of a language, are not 
the work of civilization, but of nature. It is not writers, 
nor arbitrary conventions, that give laws to language : the 
forms of grammar, the power of combinations, the possi- 
bility of inversions, spring from within us, and are a con- 
sequence of our own organization."* Grammar may be 
styled the fashion of truth. Established usage makes 
almost any form of expression grammatical, for whatsoever 
is established, is also understood, which is what is princi- 
pally intended by grammar. There are various anomalies 
in every language, that can be explained on no other 
principle. In Greek a plural verb frequently has a singu- 
lar nominative, and double negatives only make the 



« Bancroft's History of American colonization, Vol. 3. p. 



2G9 



6i SELF EDUCATION. 

negation stronger, while in our own language they are 
used as an affirmative. Our awkward substitution of the 
plural pronoun you, for thee and thou, may show how 
easily the most palpable violation of analogy becomes 
grammatical when once it has the sanction of common 
usage. Where there is precision of thought there will 
not often be a want of grammar or rhetoric, and if there is 
a violation of existing rules, the usual redress of the 
science is to add a new rule that shall legalize the infrac- 
tion. Thus rhetorical canons become the sport of genius, 
and the ever-varying construction of a living language 
sets at defiance the power of criticism. 

But there is a more formidable objection to over-refine- 
ment of style than even its want of utility. By attempt- 
ing to give laws to genius, it reverses the order of nature, 
and blights what it meant to improve. No writer who 
allows himself to be trammeled either in language or 
sentiment, by the thoughts of other men, can ever rise 
above mediocrity. The mind which is entrusted with an 
important truth, will feel the consequence of that truth 
too much to ask for any thing more than the means of 
explicit communication. It has been said that "In no 
polished nation, after criticism has been much studied, and 
the rules of writing estabhshed, has any very extraordinary 
book ever appeared."* Although this observation is not 
.strictly correct, yet it is sufficiently so to evince the absur- 
dity of relying upon an adherence to the rules of criticism 
for the advancement of knowledge. If such rules are not 
an effectual barrier to eminence, it is at least certain that 
the want of them has never impeded the progress of truth, 

* Quoted by Dr. Johnson from '< An Essay on the Writings and 
Genius of Pope." He says, "The remark deserves great at« 
tcntion," 



MEANS. 65 

Genius is a law unto itself, and its iniiuitable productions 
are never dependent upon the state of the arts and sci- 
ences. Therefore whenever a language requires too mixcli 
obsequiousness, it must be left to those who are conscious 
of no higher calling, and minds of loftier purpose will pro- 
vide a medium of expression that shall offer no restraint to 
the peculiarity of their powers. 

On the utility of studying the ancient classics, different 
views have prevailed, and for very justifiable reasons. By 
many a knowledge of the dead languages has been consid- 
ered indispensable to education ; while others have regarded 
such attainments as of doubtful importance. 

This is a complicated subject, and one which, in the 
preseiit state of literature, deserves even more attention 
than it has yet received. To the mere philologist these 
languages must ever be of great consequence ; but to the 
man of science, whether poet or philosopher, they are 
valuable only for the knowledge which they contain. 
When G-reek and Latin were employed for the transaction 
of business, or the composition of books, they had all the 
claims which it is possible for language to possess. But 
they are now employed for neither of these jDurposes, and 
as the most valuable deposits which they contain have 
either been transferred to our language or rendered un- 
necessary by original acquisitions,* their claims are so 

* " All tliat remains of Greece and Pome, which is really worthy 
of being known, has been published cither in English or French. 
There is no storehouse there to be unlocked."— Dr. A. Clarke. 
(Life, Vol. 2, p. 225) 

Should the correctness of this opinion be called in question, wo 
have only to say that a necessity for further translations cannot 
devolve upon comnuinity at large an obligation to learn those an, 
cient languages. We might with the same propriety require every 
nun who needs a watch, to learn the art of watch-making merely 



C6 SELF lilDUCATION, 

reduced as to make them a matter of little importance to 
any but the literary antiquary or the professional student 
who is unfortunate enough to be more concerned with 
words than with. facts. The strongest argument which 
can be adduced in favor of cultivating these languages, ia 
the fact that they still furnish the best means of inter- 
course with those ancient nations ; yet this argument is 
far from being conclusive, since to converse with the an- 
cients is not the great business of human life. Education 
is designed to make us what they were, and not barely to 
make us acquainted with their greatness. They were 
great without us ; we may be great without them. Trans- 
lations, though acknowledged to fall below the originals, 
will answer aU the ends of emulation ; they will give us 
truth, and we need no more. 

It has been urged that the study of the classics exerts 
a beneficial influence by way of disciplining the mind. 
This advantage is altogether imaginary. Mind needs no 
such discipline. Still the diifieult task of acquiring a dead 
language is not without advantages. Such studies, bc- 

for the purpope of making his own time piece. That modern au. 
thors have, in a, great degree, superseded the necessity of ancient 
literature, is well known. 

"The great productions of Athenian and Roman genius are 
indeed still what they were. But though their positive value is 
unchangedj their relative value, when compared with the whole 
mass of mental wealth possessed by mankind, has been constantly 
falling. They were the intellectual all of our ancestors. They 
are but a part of our treasures." — Macauly. (Review of Bacon's 
Works.) 

'■'With respect lo the sura of knowledge which the works of 
aiuiqully convey, as compared with that which is conveyed by 
modern literature, the disproportion is great in the extreme. To 
say that the modern is a hundred times greater than the ancient, is 
to keep far from the language of exaggeration." — Dyraond's 
Essays, p. 192. 



MEANS. 67 

Bides awakening the mind to a knowledge of its own 
capacities, and enlarging its acquaintance with the philos- 
ophy of language, never fail to introduce new ideas of 
things, and to excite an interest in the subject of intellect- 
ual hiiprovemcnt. This however only proves that these 
acquisitions are not useless ; other evidence, and such as 
can not be had, is wanting to prove that they are essential 
to modern education. If these languages were needed as 
depositories of science, or as means of intellectual com- 
merce, we might insist upon their cultivation. But why 
cultivate languages tliat are not to be used? With their 
use, their necessity ceases. As relics of the past, they 
may be curious and instructive ; but not . serving as lan- 
guages, at least in their original capacity, they are of no 
importance to practical life, and should be remitted to the 
cabinet of antiquities. The knowledge which they have 
preserved can be transferred to living languages, and will 
not be the less valuable for its new depository. Shall we 
worship the casket for the sake of the gem which it once 
contained? Facts will still be facts in spite of a modern 
alphabet, and those ancient tongues, disburdened of the 
treasure M'hichthey were expected to convey to later gen- 
erations, may be allowed to perish with the nations tliat 
used them. I need not remark that these principles are 
applicable to the study of aU foreign languages ; they can 
be useful only when demanded for actual intercourse, or 
for opening soui'ces of information not otherwise accessible. 
Language is not sentiment, nor literature the sum of 
knowledge. And abstractly considered, skill in these 
compares with the system of knowledge about as does the 
doctrine of colors with the whole compass of physical 
science. Indeed their intrinsic importance is so small tliat 
they seem to have no positive existence. The language of 
a community is a/ac simile of its intelligence. An igno- 



68 SELF EDUCATION. 

rant and barbarous people never wi'itc or speak a refined 
and elegant language, nor has it ever been known that an 
elegant and refined people used a rude and barbarous 
dialect. A system which thus exists only as a consequence 
of knowledge, can not be considered of much intrinsic 
value. In accordance with this were the views of Mil- 
ton, " Language is but the instrument conveying to us 
things useful to be known. And though a linguist 
should pride himself to have all the tongues that Babel 
cleft the world into, yet if he have not studied the solid 
things in them as well as the words and lexicons, he were 
nothing so much to be esteemed a learned man, as any 
yeoman or tradesman competently wise in his mother 
dialect only."* It is therefore to the relative importance 
of literature that we must ascribe the necessity for its 
cultivation. In this respect it is not unlike the mariner's 
compass which is of small consequence in itself, but when 
applied to navigation, becomes of inconceivable advantage. 
Literature considered merely as an ornament of social 
life, or as a branch of natural philosophy, will perhaps pay 
the expense of cultivation, but it is chiefly valuable as the 
medium of mental commimicatiou, and the ud decaying 
record of science. Its utility in these respects is so well 
expressed by Dr. Grood, that I shall close this section with 
his remarks. After detailing in a variety of interesting 
observations, the origin of wi'iting, or at least its origin 
so far as we have any authentic information on the sub- 
ject, he proceeds : " Such is a brief history of the noblest 
art that has ever been invented by the unassisted efforts 
of human xmderstanding ; an art that gives stability to 
thought, forms a cabinet for our ideas, and presents, in 

* Tractate on Education. (Prose works, London, 1S39, p. 98.) 



MEANS. 60 

inipcrishablc colors, a speaking portraiture of tbc soul. 
Without tliis, hard indeed would be tlie separation of 
friends ; and tlie traveller would become an exile from his 
native home — vainly languishing for the consolatory 
information that hig wife, his children, his kinsmen, liis 
country, were in a state of health and prosperity, and 
him.?elf still embalmed in their affections. Without this, 
what to us would be the wisdom of past ages, or the 
history of former states ? The chain of nature would be 
broken through all its links, and every generation become 
an isolated and individual world, equally cut off, as by an 
irremediable abyss, from its ancestors and from its poster- 
ity. While the language of the lips is fleety as the breath 
itself, and confined to a single spot as well as a single 
moment, the language of the pen enjoys, in many instan- 
ces, an adamantine existence, and will only peii^h amid 
the ruins of the globe. Before its mighty touch time 
and space become annihilated; it joins epoch to epoch, 
and pole to pole ; it gives unity to the works of crea- 
tion and Providence, and enables us to trace from the 
beginning of things to the end. It is the great sun 
of the moral world, that warms, and stimuJates, and vivi- 
fies, and irradiates, and develops, and matures the best 
virtues of the he'art, and the best faculties of the intel- 
lect. But for this, every thing would be doubt, and 
darkness, and death-shade ; all knowledge would bo 
traditionary, and all experience local; civilized life 
■would relapse into barbarism, and man would have to 
run through his little, and comparatively insignificant 
round of existence, the perpetual sport of ignorance and 
error, uninstructed by science, unregulated by Iaws, and 
unconsoled by revelation,"* 

• Book of Nature, Lect. 10., Eccond series. 



TO BELP EDUOATIOlf, 



Section II. Science. 

It is for the sake of science that literature exists. But 
for science the art of wiiting would be as useless as the 
power of speech where nothing was to be spoken. It 
would be as a house which was to have no inhabitant, or a 
conveyance in which nothing could be conveyed. Science 
and literature are not identical, as one stands to the other 
in the relation of means to an end. Science is the end, 
and literature is, in part, our way to that end. 

Knowledge is to the mind what light is to the eye, an 
indispensable pre-recjuisite to the performance of its func- 
tions. Light may exist without vision, and knowledge 
without understanding, because in both cases it is abstractly 
possible not to employ the faculties on which these acta 
depend ; but in neither instance can the faculty accom- 
plish any thing apart from its constitutional medium or 
element. Lord Bacon therefore deserves great credit for 
having called the attention of mankind to the fact that, 
" Knowledge and human power are synonymous."* A 
truth which, however much neglected, probably never was 
quite forgotten. Knowledge is power, because mind is 
nob available without knowledge. Hence a great part of 
human knowledge is necessary, and does not at all depend 
upon a voluntary application of the mental faculties. The 
mind that does not know is as useless as a mirror which 
fails to reflect the objects placed before it. In conformity 
to this idea, the same author has elsewhere said " A man 
is but what he knoweth:"t — that is, knowledge is the 

« Nov. Org. Apb. 3, Book 1. 
t Praise of Knowledge. 



MBANS. 71 

condition of intellectual activity and efficiency. But 
knowledge not only displays the capacity of the human 
mind by bringing its powers into exercise : it also predom- 
inates over them so fully that Bacon does not hesitate to 
affirm that, " The mind itself is but an accident to know- 
ledge."* Tliis is indeed to reach the extreme of specu- 
lative boldness; but he has repeated his views on this 
subject and in a passage which I shall quote from the 
Advancement of Learning, they are expressed more at 
length and in much less exceptionable phraseology, " But 
the commandment of knowledge is yet higher than the 
commandment over the will, for it is a commandment over 
the reason, belief, and understanding of man, which is 
the highest part of the mind, and giveth law to the will 
itself; for there is no power on earth which setteth up a 
throne or chair of state in the spirits or souls of men, and 
in their cogitations, imaginations, opinions and beliefs, but 
knowledge and learning. "f That science lies at the foun- 
dation of human enterprise, is a truth which, however 
little knowT-i two centuries ago, now needs neither amplifi- 
cation nor defence. While Europe was in its transition 
state, passing by slow degrees from barbarism into refine- 
ment, the utterance of such a sentiment was in advance 
of the age, and justly entitled the author to a high reputa- 
tion. Then science was mistaken for chance, and art for 
magic ; ignorance was considered the mother of devotion, 
and knowledge the enemy of religion. Those who could 
read and write, following the practice of a still darker age, 
too generally wasted their time and talents upon merely 
verbal distinctions that only tended to " darken counsel 
by words without knowledge," while before them lay the 

♦ Praise of Knowledge, 
t Book 1. 



72 SELF EDUCATION. 

whole domain of science as a barren -wilderness. To an- 
nounce at such a time that knowledge is power, and to 
treat with merited contempt the metaphysical subtleties 
then universally in vogue, was no ordinary achievement. 
But those times are gone, and with them — happUy for 
mankind — has gone the scholastic logic. The course of 
education is changed. Literature is no longer employed 
as an instrument of investigation, but merely as a means 
of expression, and knowledge is admitted to be the legiti- 
mate object of the student. Bacon's celebrated observa- 
tion is now a truism. Even the humblest individual knows 
as well as did the Lord Chancellor of Great Britain in the 
days of James the first, that knowledge is equivalent to 
power. 

It does not fall Avithin the plan of this work to discuss 
minutely the advantages arising from the study of any 
particular branch of science ; but as some sciences appear 
to have been neglected, and others to have been cultivated, 
from mistaken views of their essential importance, it is 
necessary to take up the subject so far as these errors lie 
in the way of mental improvement. In reality all know- 
ledge is valuable only in proportion to its subserviency to 
human wants, and the object is to determine what a par- 
ticular class of truths can contribute to this purpose. As 
no satisfactory division of the sciences has ever been made, 
we cannot be expected to follow any esfablished order, nor 
to do more than notice such particulars as have forced 
themselves upon public observation. 

Natural Philosophy was for a long time undervalued, and 
perhaps even at the present time does not hold its proper 
place in our higher institutions of learning. It is taught 
there, we admit, and there is no cause to complain that tho 
instruction is deficient ; but it seems to be tolerated from 
nec^^ity rather than weltfbmed from choice. Institutioiui 



MEANS. 73 

of a merely literary cliaracter can not exist, and thereforo 
phyi-ical scicnco has to bo included in the co]l(>ge course. 
The exclusion of such studies has the sanctioii of many 
very einiiicat scholars, among whom is Dr. Johnson. This 
great man, whose passion for literature led him to neglect, 
if not to despise other kinds of knowledge, has given his 
opinion at length in combatting what he thought to be an 
error of Milton. " The purpose of Milton, as it seeni--, 
was to teach s.-mcthing more solid than the common liter- 
ature of the schooitJ, by reading those authors that treat 
of physical subjects, such as the Georgia and astronomiea! 
treatises of the ancients. This was a scheme of impro\o- 
ment which seems to have busied many hterature pro- 
jectors of that age. Cowley, who had more means than 
Milton of knowing what was wanting to the cmbellisli- 
ments of life, form<id the same plan of education in his 
imaginary college. But the truth is, that the knowlediic 
of external nature and the sciences which that knowledge 
requires or includes, are not the great or the fvequetit 
business of the human miad. Whether we provide for 
action or conversation, whether we wish to be useful (-r 
pleasing, the first ref|uisite is the religious and moral 
knowledge of right and wrong; the next is an acf|uaiutan(\' 
with the history of mankind, and with those examples which 
may bo said to embody truth, and prove by events the 
reasonableness of opinions. Prudence and justice are 
virtues and excellencies of all times and of all places ; we are 
perpetually moralists, but we are geometricians only by 
chance. Our intercourse with intellectual nature is neces- 
ECLvy; our specitlations upon matter are voluntary, and at 
leisure. Physiological learning is of such rare emero-enco, 
that one may know another half his lit'e, without being able 
to estimate his skill in hydrostatics or astronomy ; but his 
moral and prudential character immediately appear.-. 



74 SELF EDUCATION. 

Those authors, therefore, are to be read at schools that 
supply most axioms of prudence, most principles of moral 
truth, and most materials for conversation; and these 
purposes are best served by poets, orators, and histo- 
nans. * 

Here the argument is very properly made to turn 
upon utility ; and natural science, including mathematics, 
is rejected because less frequently demanded by the affairs 
of life. But is it true that the demand for this kind of 
knowledge is of rare occurrence ? Nothing could be far- 
ther from the truth. Natural Philosophy, taken in the 
comprehensive sense that his argument implies, enters into 
all the movements of civilized society, and without it, such 
society could not exist. Architecture, manufactures, and 
commerce are entii'ely dependant upon this science ; and 
but for these, man would be a wild, unlettered savage. 
Man is, to some extent, a material being, and he must 
have material relations. Our speculations upon matter,. 
therefore, can neither be voluntary nor at leisure ; they 
must at least be as necessary as any part of human know- 
ledge. It is true that mere idlers, and even men con- 
cerned only with literary and ethical pursuits, might often 
meet together without having any occasion to test each 
other's acquaintance with physiological science ; but this 
can be affirmed of such, and of such only, as every person 
engaged in more active employments must constantly evince 
a knowledge of the laws of nature. The navigator, the 
mechanic, and the farmer ; the artist, the inventor, and 
the philosopher are wholly unable to prosecute their 
respective vocations, unless aided by that learning which 
is pronounced to be of such rare emergence that one may 
know another half his life without being able to estimate 

* Life of Milton. 



MEANS, 75 

his sldll ill it ; and while tlicse pursuits are maintained, 
men can never be saiil to be naturalists and geometricians 
by chance. Poets, orators and historians have their uses, 
but they can not teach tlie nuiviner how to guide his ship 
over the wave.s, nor the mechanic how to construct his 
engines ; they cannot help the astronomer to calculate the 
distances of the heavenly bodies, nor the chemist to deter- 
mine the constitution of the elements. It was not to these 
that Newton, Hcrscliel, and Davy were indebted for their 
fame ; their greatness was achieved by the study of nature, 
and the obligation to remember them with gratitude, is an 
obligation imposed by natural philosophy. The attain- 
ments which he recommends are certainly of high conse- 
quence, and the only error consists in attempting to make 
them exclusive ; morality is essential, but it is not the 
only thing essential.* 

Mathematical science occupies a position in the educa- 
tional arrangements of the day equal, and perhaps not 
more than equal, to its importance. It is so indispensable 
to many of the investigations of natural philosophy that 
the two departments of knowledge must ever be cultivated 
in connection with each other. It is to this — its utility in 
the calculations and measurements of matter, space, and 

* Bacon's opinion of Natural Philosophy is well known, and 
would lead to a conclusion very different from that of Dr. Johnson. 
He calls it the " great mother of the sciences," and says that (ho 
other sciences must necessarily be superficial while separated from 
this their root. (Nov. Org. B. 1, Aph. 80.) Of the moral and 
religious tendency of this science Bacon's estimate was no lesa 
favorable. " Any one who properly considers the subject, will find 
natural philosophy to be, after the Word of God, the surest remedy 
against superstition, and the most approved support of faith. She 
is therefore rightly bestowed upon religion as a most faithful atten- 
dant, for the one exhibits the will, and the other the power of God." 
Ibid. Aph, 89. 



76 SELF EDUCATIOX. 

timo — that matliematical science owes its value. We have 
been told, however, by nearly every modern writer ou 
education, that it is of great use in strengthening the 
niiad.* But often as this assertion has been made, it docs 
not appear to be supported by facts ; for a mathematician 
can reason no better in any thing but mathematics, than 
one who never studied the science. He can learn lan- 
guage no faster, his judgment on moral subjects is no 
better, his penetration into the processes of nature is no 
keener. Hence it is evident that his mind is not invigo- 
rated, and that organic development can not be one of the 
advantages of mathematics. That the study is attended 
with some benefit by making the individual acquainted 
with his capacity for minute investigations and with the 
necessity of care in all his intelloctuai researches, I have 
no doubt. If he can think better than he could before, it 
is because he knows better the strength of his powers and 

* Bacon at first took this view of the subject, bat subsequently 
Ebindoncd it. " When, in 1605, he wrote the two books on the 
'Advancement c-f Learning,' he dweU on the advantages Vvhicii 
mankind derived from mixed mathematics ; but he at the same 
time admitted, that the beneficial effect produced by mathematical 
study on the intellect, tliough a collateral advantage, was 'no less 
worthy than that which was prmcipal and intended.' But it is 
evident that his views underwent a change. When, nearly twenty 
years later, he published the De Augmentis, which is the treatise 
on the ' Advancement of licarning,' greatly expanded and care- 
fully corrected, he made important alterations in the part which 
related to mathematics. He condemned with severity the high 
pretensions of the malhematicians, ' delicias et fastum meihemd- 
ticorum.^ Assuming the well-being of the human race to be the 
end of knowledge, he pronounced that mathematical science 
could claim no higher rank than that of an appendage, or an aux. 
iliary to the other sciences. Mathematical science, he says, is the 
handmaid of natural philosophy; she ought to demean herself as 
such; and he declares that he can not conceive by what ill chance it 



MEANS. / i 

how to apply them more skillfully. Mathematics aiul 
language are merely instruments of acquiring knowledge ; 
they should never be cultivated for what they are in them- 
Fclves, nor for the influence that they exert upon the mind. 
They are to the operations of the mind what the tools of 
the mechanic are to his labors, and crpially destitute of 
itulependent value or of ability to increase the organic 
power of their employer. 

Anotlicr branch of science, and the only one to which 
I shall at present refer, is Logic. Truth is the very 
substance of education. And whatever puts us in possession 
of this with the greatest certainty, is the best means of 
mental improvement. As the only purpose of logic is to 
ascertain truth, and that too in relation to the most difB- 
cnlt subjects of inquirj^ it is not surprising that a science 
of such high pretensions should have attracted uncommon 
ititerest. Well would that interest have been requited i^. 
tlic system which called it forth had not proA^nl fallacious 

lias happened tlial she presumes to claim precedence over licr 
Tuistress. Of that collateral advantagR, the value of wiiicl), 
twenty years before, he rated so highly, he sa)'s not one word. 
This omission can not have been the effect of mere inadvertence. 
His own treatise was before him. From tliat treatise he delibe- 
rately expunged whatever was favorable to pure mathematics, and 
inserted several keen reflections on the ardent votaries of that 
study." Maeauly. Review of Bacon's Works. 

The opposition of Bacon w is founded upon the inutility of pure 
nialhomatics. But there are reasons for believing that the effect 
of this science is, in some respects, even worse than useless. '' In 
the course of my own experience," says Dugald Stewart, " I have 
never met with a 7nere mathematician who was not credulous to a 
fault ; credulous not only with respect to human testimony, bwt 
credulpus also in matters of opinion : and prone, on all subjects 
which he had not carefully studied, to repose too much faith in 
illustrious and consecrated names." Philosophy of the Human 
Mind, Vol. 3, p. 183. 



78 SELF EDUCATION. 

The science has undergone some modifications, and several 
parts of it have fallen into disuse. Among these may be 
reckoned the sjllogislic theory- of Aristotle. Every meta- 
physician of eminence, since the days of Locke, abounds 
with observations on the inutility of this part of logic. 
Yet its inventor deemed it complete, and so did the bulk 
of those ^'\]lO participated in the endless logomachy which 
followed for two thousand years. But the fate of syllo- 
gisms is that which is reserved for all similar theories of 
investigation ; for they are based upon the principal that 
words, and not things, are req[uired in the search of truth. 
The art of reasoning does not consist in arranging words 
according to certain rules, but in a comparison of things 
themselves by means of the intellectual faculties. Words 
can only indicate the result to which the mind arrives ia 
its processes of thought. 

Modern writers, having observed that the scholastic 
logic was attended with very little advantage to science, 
seem to have contracted a prejudice against the discursive 
faculty as an instrument of acquiring knowledge. This is 
to blame the agent for what belongs only to the instru- 
ment, and we might as well reject the use of our eyes 
because the}* can not see perfectly through defective glasses. 
" The ancients," says Br. Reid, " seem to have had too 
high notions, both of the reasoning power in man, and of 
the art of syllogism as its guide. Mere reasoning can 
carry us but a very little way in most subjects. By obser- 
vation, and experiments properly conducted, the stock of 
human knowledge may be enlarged without end ; but the 
power of reasoning alone, applied with vigor through a 
long life, would carry a man round, like a horse in a mill, 
who labors hard, but makes no progress."* There can be 
no doubt but the ancients mistook the nature of language 
and employed it for purposes to which it never was, and 



MEANS. 79 

never can be adeiiuato ; it is not so clear, however, that 
they coimiiittcd the sauic mistake in relation to the powers 
of the iiiiud. Had the jueaiis which they used been 
better, had the understanding been subjected to the severe 
rules of a more rational logic, their achievements would 
have compared favoi'abl}^ with any thing that modern sci- 
ence can boast. They had not learned that reason instead 
of relying upon words, must rely solely upon facts, or the 
syllogistic art would never have been countenanced as an 
engine of science. 

It is true that the reasoning faculty admits of no 
intrinsic improvement. Man, as a rational being, possesses 
power to make a jnst inference from premises which he 
understands ; and the higliest conclusion of inductive phi- 
losophy, the mightiest eifort of the human understanding, 
is nothing more. Now although this faculty is thus per- 
fect in its nature and needs no cultivation, yet it is limited 
in its means, and can only perform its functions according 
to the opportunities afforded. And if ancient or modern 
sophists have met with no success in their reasonings, it is 
because they have deserved none ; reason was given to 
mankind for other uses than wrangling and speculation, 
and it must be employed upon more substantial objects 
than those arbitrary characters which are designed merely 
as the symbols of thought. If men use their reason as 
the Author of reason intended it should be used, they will 
have no occasion either "to strive about words," or to 
complain of the abortive character of their efforts. The 
rapid advancement of science for a few centuries -^ast, 
is chiefly owing, as I conceive, to an improved state of 
logic, and not at all to the fact that men have learned to 
place less dependence upon their reason. Our philosophers 
have laid aside, not their intellects, but an impotent and 
* Brief Account of Aristotle's Logic, Chap. 4, Sec. 5. 



so SELF EDUCATION. 

irrational system of rules wliicli only retarded the progress 
of knowledge, and in its place they have adopted a new 
l')gic whicli reason can apply to better advantage. This 
►system has nothing to do with syllogisms, nor indeed M'ith 
any thing but facts ; having thrown off the restraints of 
authority, it becomes a law nnto itself, and guided solely 
l)y truth, compares what is unknown with what is known, 
until the induction is perfect and an addition is made to 
the sum of human knowledge. 

Just rules of reasoning can not increase the power of 
}-eason, but still they may enable it to do what it otherwise 
(■ould not. For this reason logic ought to be studied with 
tiie greatest care, and as an integral branch of mental 
philosophy. It should not be despatched as a system of 
dry and abstract forms, possessing little interest and less 
utility. Such treatment the jejune dialectics of a former 
age deserved, but it must not be awarded to the staid 
induction of the present day. Thus far by way of cor- 
recting the misapprehensions to which reference was made. 

The foregoing observations are not intended to give 
prominence to any particular science to the exclusion of 
a)iy other, for the province of self- education is all know- 
ledge. Personal predilections or some contingent circum- 
stance may exert a limited control over the mind, and 
restrict for a time its application to narrower bounds, but, 
i/ faithful to itself, it will soon rise above restraint, and 
hold comnmnion with every science. Nothing less than 
tlic whole empire of practicable knowledge can afford suffi- 
cient scope for the activity or the ambition of intellectual 
nature. And yet it must not be imagined that in most of 
these extensive acquisitions, any thing more is gained than 
first principles. Those who think to amass the details of 
every science, attempt what is both useless and impossible. 
Ordinarily we have no occasion for those injinitcsivial 



MEANS. 81 

subdivisions of which knowledge is susceptible, and con- 
venience requires that the greater part of what we know, 
like the greater part of our money, should be, not of the 
lowest, but of the highest denomination. Especially is 
this true where intell(;ctual treasure is of much extent ; 
those who have but little — not more than is demanded by 
the exigences of every hour, or of a single profession, must 
have it in form to be dispensed as the ramifications of want 
require. As this subject is of great consequence to the 
progress and character of knowledge, I shall consider it 
somewhat more at large. 

The difference between what are termed fundamental 
laws of belief, and the first principles of a particular sci- 
ence is, that the former are theoretically and practically 
admitted by all, even by Berkeley and Hume, who affected 
to deny them, while the latter are not necessarily admitted 
either, in theory or practice. These are constituent parts 
of ratiocination itself, wliile those are essential only to a 
single class of facts. A science is no more than a collec- 
tion of facts legitimately derived from one or more common 
principles; hence, if these are false, the whole science 
must be false ; for error, although it may be the occasion, 
can never be the cause of truth. As these primary truths 
potentially and virtually contain all that can be deduced 
from them, it follows that a knowledge of them is, in a 
very important sense, a knowledge of the whole science. 
For this reason Mr. Locke, long since, recommended the 
study of first principles as a Uicans of intellectual improve- 
ment. "There are," he says, "fundamental truths that lie 
at the bottom, the basis upon which a great many others 
rest, and in wliieh they have their consistency. These are 
teeming truths, rich in store, with which they furnish the 
mind, and, like the lights of heaven, are not only beautiful 
and eutertaiaing in themselves, but give light and evidence 



82 SELF EDUCATION. 

to other things, that -without them could not be seen or 
known. Such is that admirable discovery of Mr. Newton, 
that all bodies gravitate to one another, which may be 
counted as the basis of natural philosophy; which of what 
use it is to the understanding of the great frame of our 
solar system, he has to the astonishment of the learned 
world shown ; and how much farther it would guide us in 
other things if rightly pursued, is not yet knoAvn. Our 
Savior's great rule, that ' we should love our neighbor 
as ourselves,' is such a fundamental truth for the regula- 
ting human society, that, I think, by that alone, one might 
without difficulty determine all the cases and doubts in 
social morality. These and such as the;5e are the truths 
we should eiuleavor to find out, and store our minds with."* 
There are numberless truths that never can be known, and 
if they could, such knowledge would be of no use. It is, 
therefore, a matter of necessity that those who wish to 
excel in one science, should restrict their iiicjuiries on other 
subjects to first principles alone ; or, if the aim be higher 
and universal scholarship the object of endeavor, it will 
not much vary the case, as the field is still too extensive for 
minute research. The sciences are like so many inverted 
pyramids; beginning with a si; ;gle juinciple they branch 
out to infinit3^ Not even the memory could retain, if it 
were possible for the other faculties to explore, the multi- 
tudinous deductions which have been made from the ele- 
ments of a single division of truth. Indeed, a compre- 
hensive mind instinctively shrinks from the retention of 
isolated facts, and seizes upon the general principle as 
alone worthy of preservation. 

On the relation of first principles to the present state 
of science, a difference of opinion has been entertained. 

* Conduct of Unders. Sec. 42, 



MEANS. 83 

Some have maintained that the principles of science are 
now settled, and all tliat rcniain.s is to build upon the found- 
ation which has been laid. ]]ut the cun-cctncss of thia 
view may well be doubted. The piincijiles of a science 
are not otherwise than provisionally settled so long as there 
is any chance for new discoveries to abridge the import- 
ance of the facts already known. It is the nature of a 
first principle not to be contradicted nor overthi-own by 
any subsequent speculation, but to blend itself inseparably 
with every phasis of the science. How far the leading 
facts in several branches of science are both incontestably 
true and essentially primary, appears trom the competition 
of opposing theories. We do not mean that there can be 
no diversity of o})iniou with respect to secondary facts 
where the general principles are established. This has 
been, and will continue to be, a necessary condition of 
hypothetical knowledge. Man is so addicted to a prema- 
ture generalization, that after he has acquired the rudimenta 
of science, if he relaxes his inductive habits, ho immedi- 
ately slides into false conclusions ; but these erroneous 
conclusions, however, do not subvert the rudiments which 
were before acquired ; they only retard improvement 
according as they are more or less divergent from sound 
|)hilosophy. The greatest philosophers have not always 
been able to do more than detect errors ; these errors are 
generally fundamental and must be removed before an 
approximation can be made to truth. Such was the state 
of physics among the ancients, and wiili some esceptions 
in favor of an analytical method of investigation, it is the 
condition of metaphysics at tlie present day. Ivlcdiciue, 
ethics, and polities are nearly in the same state. It may 
be, that the principles whicli will ultimately unite the 
suffrages of mankind in their favor, are now developed; 
but we can not regard them as settled while their claims 



8-1 SELF EDUCATION. 

continue to be disputed by any considerable portion of the 
learned world. 

Whether we have right views of tilings and become 
truly learned, depends not so much on the length of time 
we study as on the place where we begin. Great discovev 
ries have generally taken their rise from attempts to 
investigate fii'st principles. The law of gravitation was 
known, to some extent, before the days of Newton, but it 
was reserved for him to regard this law as a general prin- 
ciple, and by just deductions from a single fact, to explain 
the motion of the celestial bodies. Most of the improve- 
ments in mechanics, which are justly the admiration and 
the glory of the age, are no more than the application of 
an old principle to a new purpose ; for instance, the expan- 
sive power of water and the consequent force of steam 
have always been known, but their use in propelling boats 
and carriages is the result of modern observation. In like 
manner the use of cast iron for ploughs was simply the 
conversion of a well-known substance to a new purpose. 
These remarks will serve to illustrate the origin of the 
various moral improvements and benevolent enterprises 
that have sprung up within a few years. Sunday schools 
are no more than the application of the common school 
principle to exclusively religious matters. Temperance 
societies, and the whole brotherhood of voluntary associa- 
tions, are modifications of the social principle. And the 
reason why men are better to day than they were yesterday, 
is because the moral princij)le has been extended to more 
of the practices of life. 

There is a corrective tendency in first principles which 
renders the frequent examination of them indispensable to 
the purity of knowledge. In several of our elementary 
works they have been totally overlooked, so that if the 
practical operations, hfid not involved them they would not 



MEANS. 5^5 

have been contained h\ tlie books. What writer of graiu- 
uiar has noticed the priiici}ilo of construction or mcchanisui 
that pervades language, and which is the real basis of those 
analogical rules by which grammarians are governed? 
What author of rhetoric has suggested that writing is 
only a mechanical expression of thought, or furnished us 
with the requisite positive, practical rules for its attain- 
ment? The most of them teach the art cf writing as 
Lord ChostcrCcld did good manners, by negatives. Some 
of the most essential elements of arithmetic are but partly 
stated, and others are wholly emitted. The reason of 
referring to these deficiencies in existing publications is 
this : — By teaching sciences, the cardinal principles of 
which are either not stated or not explained, we make them 
rest upon the authority of the author, and not, as they 
should, on immutable truth. V/hen this is done we have 
opened the door for the admission of every error that may 
seek for entrance. The asiim and the inference shouul 
be exhiuited in connection, then the verisimilitude of the 
latter can be seen, and the discrepancies which are ever 
insinuating themselves, more particularly into the moral 
sciences, Avill be avoided. Most of the moral phenomena 
which we dcj.lore in society appear to originate from illog- 
ical consequences deduced from true premises. This 
seems the more prcjbable as we usually find those guilty of 
voluntary and confirmed errors, right in the abstract, but 
wrong in particulars. In the temperance cause, the aim 
was not to prove drunkenness a sin, for this was not dis- 
puted, but to trace the criminahty up. to individuals, or 
show the weakness of the subterfuge which had led the 
public so generally into crime. In this wa}', also, the 
most palpable heresies in religion have commonly been 
connected with many of the vital elements of Christianity. 
Our only hope of improvement either in science or moral?, 



86 SEES' EDUCATKW. 

eeems to be identified with the prevalence and ascendancy 
of first principles. When these are forgotten, error will 
be rife in every department, and all attempts at reforma- 
tion fruitless, if not mischievous. Luthei', by returning to 
the doctrines of the Bible, laid the foundation of the 
Reformation; and the logic of Bacon — the far-famed 
inductive system — in its very spirit, is nothing but a 
renunciation of speculative error and a sober return to the 
principles of common sense, in which it is sustained by the 
reason of mankind. 

These remarks render it sufficiently evident that our 
views, nay, our very characters, are decided by the scope 
and the justness of this class of truths. Revelation is 
remarkable for the great number of its general precepts, 
and the seeming want of minute exposition often discerc- 
able, indicates that proficiency in the most profound 
infjuiries is very little dependent on inferential facta. 
Their influence on literary character is not less obvious. 
Probably the inexorableness of the superficial critic arises 
from his not comprehending like the bland and penetrating 
scholar, the great variety of forms in which things may 
lawfully appear, provided only that there be some general 
excellence. The skillful physician derives his superiority 
to the empyric, not from his better knowledge of pharmacy 
or therapeutics, but from those general physiological prin- 
ciples on which the science of medicine is founded. Every 
one has observed with what facility men of education 
write at great length or speak fluently on subjects that had 
but recently engaged their attention. This apparent pro- 
fundity of thought finds an easy solution in the prolific 
nature of first principles, and relieves us of the unnatural 
as well as incorrect idea of their mental superiority. 
Where these " fundamental verities," as they are termed 
by Mr. Locke, are wanting, there seems in reality to be 



MEANS. 87 

little or nothing of intellectual or moral character. Many 
people spend their whole lives without forming any opin- 
ions of their own, or rather they take the popular drift, 
unconscious that their inability for consecutive thinking 
obliges them to accept of whatever sentiment the public 
may mainifacture. Sophistry is ever sliaping materials of 
thi.s kind into tliose abominable carricatures of the intelli- 
gent principle which arc so obsequious to all the mandates 
of fashionable vice. 

From tlio above it follows that education consists chiefly 
in an actual, clear, and comprehensive perception of pri- 
mary maxims ; and that these are to be ever present and 
exercise a sovereign control over all conclusions throughout 
the whole empire of knowledge. If not permitted to 
mingle with the more favored competitors for the laiirels 
of truth, unassisted youth may remember that every thing 
of importance is still within their reach. Short of tamely 
conning the wearisome details of antecedent authors, their 
course — the one which genius has always taken — lies ia 
the road of revision, — of improvements built on an in- 
spection of primordial elements. 

Let those who are aiming at self-education aspire to a 
knowledge of underived truths. The soul had no origin 
but God, and its first contemplations should be upon those 
truths which have no origin but Grod and nature. Systems 
of human science are purely derivative, and one man can 
build them as well as an other. Every man, therefore, is 
not only the artificer of his own fortune, but of his own 
sentiments ; and unless he thinks for himself he will have 
none except what he borrows from others, and these may 
be infinitely worse than none. I shall only add, that Hc- 
who has made it thus necessary to think, has not subjected 
the power and competency of thought to any contingency 
but the will of man. 



88 SELF EDUCATION. 



Section III. Collateral Aids. 

There are several sources of mental improvement not 
noticed in the preceding sections, nor included in the ordi- 
nary course of education, but vrhich can not consistently 
be emitted in a vrork of this kind. Knowledge — the gi'cat 
(..bjcct of education — results from the use of our faculties ; 
it follows therefore that whatever gives employment to 
these faculties, performs for us the work of education, 
whether we so regard it or not. For want of due atten- 
tion to this it has often been supposed that improvement 
nmst cease m.erely because a certain class of means were 
not at command, or, in other words, that he who had net 
the usual scholastic advantages, had nothing. Such a 
nsistake, of course, could prevail only among those who 
, failed to observe the effect things liave upon the mind ; 
all others must know that where there is effort there must 
be knowledge. The aids to which we now refer have at 
least one advantage — they are not contingent ; and the 
student has the satisfaction of perceiving that, however 
other advantages have escaped him, he is still a being of 
relations and of business, possessed of various skill and 
of various knowledge. 

1. Social position. The position of every individual in 
society is full of instruction — and such instruction as must 
necessarily be speculative to all who have not occupied the 
same relation. Little as this kind of knowledge may have 
been esteemed for educational purposes, it is not without 
its very decided effect in tbe formation of character 
There is an education in circumstances. Many great 
names have derived their nourishment, if not like Romu- 
lous from a wolf, yet from circumstances scarcely less to be 
dreaded. Stern lessens, however, are not the only ones 



MEANS. 89 

that we gather from this source ; there are other and milder 
influences arising from our associations. Great truths 
belong to no one department of life, and hence there is no 
position in society but wliat has its share of interesting 
facts as well as of coercive stimulants. That mind Tvhicb 
is awake to its condition, can not but take notice of the 
things by which it is surrounded, and this notice is the 
fiubstance of all knowledge. Science itself can carry us 
no farther in most particulars, than simple observation ; 
here our philosophy begins, and here it ends, in regard to 
every thing essential to human wisdom. The pencil of 
Hogarth gave immortality to his name when he sketched 
the humble scenes with which he was familiar, but failed 
when he attempted higher subjects. Burns owes much of 
his celebrity to a Kterary blemish — the use of an Anglo- 
Scottish dialect — it was, however, natural to him, and his 
genius made it interesting to others. Avoidance of earlier 
or later assoc iations is not the way to eminence ; there 
must be truth and philosophy in every thing, and it is the 
work of mind to search them out both for its own and the 
public good. In this search some will find more, and 
others less, but whatever is found, like particles of gold 
dust, will have its specific value. 

2. Business. The vaiious branches of business not 
only require a certain amount of knowledge in order to 
their successful prosecution, but return to us a much 
greater amount of knowledge as the result of our labors. 
Acquisitions of this nature are not simply the fruits of 
experience; they are an evolvement from the activities of 
life ; they spring from that rapid succession of opportuni- 
ties for observation always attendant upon enterprise. 
The comparative value of such knowledge is the point now 
under consideration. If it can not elevate the mind, and 
if it can not exert the same happy influence that othei' 

f 



OC SELF EDUCATION. 

knowledge exerts, then its use as a means of education, 
raay be questioned. Whence have sprung the numerous . 
improvements in the arts, in agriculture, and in commerce ? 
No one will pretend that they have chiefly originated in the 
schools. These improvements are mostly the work of 
practical men — of men whose business is their teacher, and; 
whose knowledge is the knowledge of their business. There 
v,"ds a period when the mechanic arts, and most other business- 
avocations, were considered beneath the character of a. 
gentleman ; but labor has ennobled itself, and these pur- 
suits, once so contemptible, are now capable of conferring 
dignity upon the highest ranks in society. Bankers, raer-. 
chants, mechanics and farmers now give laws to the world;.^ 
This great power which they exert is no usurpation — no . 
infringement, upon the literati, nor upon the patent nobility 
that formerly bore sway. Labor is but controlHng its own, 
creations. The world is not what it was when it was ruled 
by prescription, nor what it will be if ever the practical- 
again gives place to the speculative in knowledge. Should: 
siny doubt, after all, whether these attaimnents may prop-, 
erly be termed education, they have only to compare their 
effects with what is produced by the learning of the schools, . 
and they will no longer be deceived by a namo. Fulton ; 
and Arkwright are names of which their respective coun-- 
tries and the vrorld may be proud. Few even among 
scholars can challenge more respect or have conferred,: 
greater advantages upon mankind. 

3. The Arts. That the arts are justly regarded as 
contributing to education, is obvious from this, that writing, 
which forms so considerable a part of scholastic instruction, 
is only an art. Music, sculpture, and painting, togethei 
with the' remaining branches of the arts, are less product 
ive of knowledge than writing, but they require ecpj. 



MEANS. 91 

talents, and arc prolific of truths important to society. 
Skill in any of those is equivalent to skill in composition, 
and shows a mind capable of excelling in literature, had 
its efforts been directed to that department of knowledge. 

-!. General Knowledge. To perceive the value of gen- 
eral knowledge, we have only to consider how imbecile the 
man of literature and science appears, till this is added to 
his other attainments. This arises from the fact that much 
of what he has learned, has no relation to common affairs ; 
his time has been spent in learned abstractions, as difficult 
to aerjuire as they are easy to forget, and so foreign to 
ordinary pursuits, that to exhibit them subjects him to the 
charge of pedantry. Life is miscellaneous, and the know- 
ledge which it requires is of a corresponding character ; 
Those concatenations of truth which we call science, are 
like the fountain, deep and abundant, biit circumscribed ; 
whereas general knowledge is like the rain which falls less 
abundantly and less constantly, but falls every where. 
Bacon has remarked that the sciences resemble the branches 
of a tree, all having one common trunk from which they 
diverge, and in which they are blended together before- 
assuming a separate character. The elements of all our 
sciences are comprehended in the inass of popular know- 
ledge ; and indeed a careful analysis would disclose, in this 
unsorted and unlabored accumulation, many things that 
have never yet been investigated. Science is only an 
enlargement of that knowledge of which no one is entirely 
destitute. Common occurrences will give us rudiments, 
and these can be expanded at pleasure. 

It is not pretended that these helps are equal in import- 
ance to literature and science, but that they are legiti- 
mate and efficient sources of education can not be doubted 



92 SELy EDUCATION. 



Section IV. Practical Principles. 

The practical method which this enterprise involve?, 
forms no small part of its available means. Among the 
attributes of a successful literary and scientific career, per- 
haps the following are the most important. 

1. An elevated and independent purpose. If those who 
aim sufficiently high, and who pursue their object by a 
right method, never fail to find embarrassments enough, 
what hopes can we have of those who are so grovelling iix 
their pursuits as not even to aspire to excellence ? False 
notions have prevailed respecting the sources of know- 
ledge, and the mis-direction of the public mind has followed 
as a necessary consequence. The same thing has hap- 
pened to art. It was formerly thought that no one could 
paint successfully unless he had seen the works of Raphael 
and Michael Angelo ; a trip to Italy was as indispensable 
as genius itself. Li^ang artists were to be praised only as 
their works conformed to this artificial standard of taste 
and perfection. By degrees, however, the speU was bro- 
ken, and the fact dawned upon the public mind that tliesc 
Italian paintings were but the works of men, and might 
therefore be equalled by men who liad never seen them. 
This lucky admission of human dignity, so creditable to 
the present age, has reduced the stream of pilgrimage to 
the shrine of the ancient artists; though the sober use of 
such opportunities is still justly valued. A similar revolu- 
tion has yet to take place in science, and particularly in 
literature. Before we can acknowledge the claims of any 
one to learning, we must know in what school he studied, 
and what authors he has read. If he claims to be a poet. 
Homer, Shakspeare, and Milton are referred to with all the 
composure imaginable, as the true standard of poetic 



MEANS. 93 

excellence. The ligbt of this brilliant triad is converged 
to a focus, in which the unfortunate candidate places his 
work for inspection, and if his solitary merits appear to 
disadvantage under these circumstances, the critics gravely 
tell us the man is deficient in genius. Our directions to 
scholars of prospect are very simple and few. They arc 
told to study the groat masters, and to draw rules from 
tlio embodied wisdom of the fathers.* How many mil- 
lions have read Homer, and yet were no poets ! How 
many have poured incessantly over the volumes of original 
authors without imbibing the spirit and genius they so 
much admired ! We forget that variety is the order of 
nature, and that her productions though perfect in kind, 
can not be reduced to any exact resemblance, nor to any 
uniform standard of equality. No course that could be 
devised, even if we hit upon nature's own plan of instruc- 
tion, would raise every person to celebrity in the same 
pursuit ; yet we can easily avoid the stupid process of 
adoption, and by pursuing a more congenial method, 
arrive at whatever distinction Providence may have de- 
signed. Great authors, like great painters, are of some 
use to the young by way of example ; they show them 
what can be done without precedent, and in circumstan- 
ces such as every youth finds to be his own ; but of all 
who need such assistance, the talented and ingenious 
student is the last. He is sensible of the merits of eacli 
distinguished writer, but his style and sentiments are bor- 
rowed from none — they are his own — they are the man, 

* "TIic best way to learn Rhetoric would be to imbibe it at the 
fountain-head, I mean, from Aristotle, Dionysius Halicarnassus, 
LonginuF, Cicero, and Quintilian." — Rolhn's Belles Lettres, Vol. 
I, p. 340, Longinus gives about the same direction, (Sublime, 
Sec. 14,) but in a manner which shows that he would not have a 
writer resign all pretensions to independent judgment. 



'94 SELS- EDUCATION. 

and his hopes are from hmiself, not from others. It is not 
at all improbable that his feelings often accord with the 
sentiment of Bjron: 

'' Great things have been, and are, and greater still 
Want of mere mortals little but their will," 

But for this feeling the author of " English Bards and 
Scotch Reviewers" would never have been the author of 
" Childe Harold." Unless we are animated by principles 
of this kind, we become the blind admirers of ancient and 
foreign greatness ; we put it forever out of our power to 
be any thing but inferiors on the theatre of life. Some 
have maintained that the beauties of the ancient poets are 
shut up in the languages in which they wrote ; that they 
must be lost to the world unless those languages are stud- 
ied, as, in their opinion, they can never be translated. 
Leaving the correctness of this assertion to be settled by 
those who are interested, I shall only observe that if the 
loss is irreparable, it is by no means unmeasured. Our 
own language has furnished poetry not inferior to the most 
exalted of Homer's. If the subtlety of their idioms 
should deprive us both of their diction and sentiments, we 
certainly have of our own a style as grand, and thoughts 
as good. But why do we thus follow — no, for this obse- 
quious imitation is but the reverse of those deeds which 
we wish to emulate. Our models were daring and un- 
trammelled, but we, with vanity sufficient to affect their 
greatness, have not wisdom enough to maintain their inde- 
pendence. The necessity for aiming at least as high as 
others have done and for acting with a similar freedom 
from all restraint is a principle which every where per- 
vades the inductive philosophy. Bacon's precepts are no 
less remarkable for their boldness than for their success ; 
take for example the thirty-first aphorism of the Novum 



MEANS. 95 

Organuni. " It is in vain to expect any great progress in 
the sciences by tlie superinducing or engrafting new mat- 
ters upon old. An instauration must be made from the 
very foundations, if we do not wish to revolve forever in a 
circle, making only some slight and contemptible progress/" 
Independence, or what Dr. Rcid calls a manly state of 
mind, i;3 one of the first endowments of a well-regulated 
intellect. The mind is naturally and properly biassed in 
favor of its own conclusions ; but when difficulties occur, 
there is a propensity to yield to authority and precedent. 
Nor may we censure, without restriction, such acquies- 
cence. Yet the mind must feel itself competent to decide 
on the soundness of its own conclusions. Precedent is 
almost the only rule of action among a certain description 
of minds ; their timidity is less shocked at the prospect of 
annihilation, than fearful of singularity. These, however 
burdened their memories may be with the thoughts of otlier 
men, have notliing that can be called education. Cringing 
;to precedent is ominous alike of mental weakness and moral 
corruption ; it suffers atrocities and falsehoods to pass un- 
questioned as virtues and truths, because others have so 
esteemed them. No vagrant principle like this can consist 
with mental improvement. The supremacy of reason over 
•all authority, and the sufficiency of reason to establish now 
precedents for itself are facts, the knowledge of which is 
antecedent to any extensive or enlightened researches. 
Mind can no raoi'e improve without resolving facts into their 
original principles than vegetation can subsist without 
acting upon the affinities of matter." So accustomed are 
well-informed and vigorous minds to this digestion or reso- 
lution of truth, as scarcely to have a consciousness of the 
process. This process is what Mr. Locke terms, " bottom- 
ing," and however useful it may be for children to find, in 
authority and precedent, a bottom for many of their idea« 



96 SELP EDUCATION. 

it is neither wise nor safe for us to be influenced by a pro- 
vision designed solely for our intellectual minority. 

2. Tlie next particular is a right direction of studici*. 
Many have failed in attempting an education, more from 
the want of a settled and judicious plan than from any 
other cause. The object to be obtained is definite, and 
the aim should be proportionally accurate. By education 
is to be understood a knowledge of the sciences, more or 
less extensive, but always comprehending a thorough ac- 
quaintance with their general principles. It is obvious, 
therefoi'e, that to secure this, a course of general reading 
must be very inadequate. General reading is indispensable 
in its place, but it can not be substituted for a course of 
elementary studies. This regular training in the princi^ 
pies of established science is the object before us ; and 
though in itself it is but the preparation for action, yet as 
a preparation it is of the highest consequence Writers 
of the last century were in the habit of calling this early 
initiation, the foundation of the fabric of knowledge ; but 
the expression is quite too strong, as these studies relate 
less to knowledge as a whole, than to the particular systems 
of science now in vogue. In some instances the acquisi- 
tion will only be as the philosophy of Aristotle was to 
Bacon, and the theory of Ptolemy to Copernicus — a means 
of disgust, and the occasion of new and unrivalled discov- 
eries. Reflections of this kind abate nothing from the 
necessity in question; for in several of the sciences the 
general principles are fully demonstrated, and therefore not 
injurious, though it should happen that still greater advan- 
ces bemade. Euclid's Elements have lost nothing of their 
value by the improvements that have since taken place in 
mathematics. Besides it is not easy to judge of the truth 
or falsity of a system with which we are not acquainted. 
If the attention is not eteadUy directed to rudiments at 



ItEAKS. 07 

first, the science, even if it should afterward be acc[uired, 
will cost much more labor than if pursued in the usual 
order. It is not, however, intended by these observations 
to convey the idea that the present arrangements of science 
are not wholly conventional. But it is of little conse- 
quence who or what may have given form to the materials 
of knowledge, for method is only designed to promote con- 
venience ; and a very imperfect arrangement must be much 
better than absolute confusion. The danger to be guarded 
against is nothing less than the dissipation of force by ill- 
directed efforts. Power exerted without order wastes itself 
to no purpose ; the limited and miscellaneous acquisitions 
by which it is followed are a poor consideration for the time 
employed, and none at all for the opportunity suffered to 
pass without improvement. 

3. Application. It is an undoubted truth that without 
persevering application scholastic attainments are impossi- 
ble. All have admitted this, but the consequences of such 
an admission appear not to have been duly considered. 
Could all the advantages in the world be combined, they 
would not of themselves make a scholar ; neither can their 
absence blast the hopes of determined application. The 
power of application has been questioned, whereas it is 
irresistible, and with only a right direction can surmount 
every thing. But we often fail to perceive the practical 
aspect of things, the theoretic principles of which readily 
obtained our assent. No one will question the necessity 
of study, 3'et few seem to be satisfied that study makes 
scholars. The sight of eminence prompts us instantly to 
enquire for the helps, the extra opportunities which have 
led to proficiency, as though industry could not here claim 
its appropriate reward. Learned men have not only toiled 
diligently, but carried to their task a delighted imagina- 
tion. Hopes of usefulness or of fame have animated their 



98 SELF EBUCATION. 

hearts to a devotion ■worthy of the objects to which they 
aspired. Under circumstances of this kind the subject is 
stripped of all those little mysteries which confuse the 
remote observer; and the connection of cause and effect 
is as visible in the profound attainments of the sage, as in 
the alphabetic knowledge of the child which can only repeat 
its letters as they are pointed out by the teacher. Schol- 
ars and men of genius are the last who affect to learn 
without trouble, their very efforts being not less remarka- 
ble than the success by which they are followed. 

4. Original Observation. The philosophy of study- 
shows at once the power of observation. We can not take 
the first step in learning any science without confining the 
attention to the principles before us. In this respect the 
first and the last steps are alike, and to one who had no 
previous knowledge of the subject, erjually easy. He who 
observes the character of what he reads will not fail to 
retain what he learns, nor to place a just estimate upon its 
value. It is not enough that we understand an author ; 
the perceptive and reflective faculties must be employed 
upon the nature and execution of his work. By thus 
observing the various excellencies and defects of standard 
writers, others have been able to carry forward their labors 
to much greater perfection. Unless the learned had pain- 
fully perceived the true character of those works which 
engaged their attention at school, the rude and imperfect 
nsanuals of former centuries would still have encumbered 
our seminaries ; and what is of far more consequence, sci- 
ence of every kind could at best but have continued sta- 
tionary. It was observation that broke the spell which the 
Stagirite cast upon the nations, and that shivered the arm 
of Roman superstition. It is observation that must resus- 
citate the mind. Without it intellectual character is but 
a name — the scintillation of genius is exchanged for the 



MEANS. 99 

meteor's glare. Those, it may be said, are the higher 
walks of observation, the tilings to be done after knowledge 
is acquired. But of this we are far from certain. An 
excellent writer has said, " The man who first discovered 
that cold freezes water, and that heat turns it into vapor, 
proceeded on the same general principles, and in the same 
method, by which Newton discovered the law of gravita- 
tion, and the properties of light. Ilis regulcs philoso- 
phandi are maxims of common sense, and are practiced 
every day in common life ; and he who philosophizes by 
other rules, either concerning the material system, or con- 
cerning the mind, mistakes his aim."* Observation is 
simply detecting what others had missed, finding what 
others had lost, or discovering what only awaited a glance 
of the eye. It is not a power which must be cultivated 
before it can act — not an act produced by preconcerted 
measures. All that is essential is that the person should 
have discernment enough to know the nature of what pass- 
es before him; his observations thenceforward are the 
basis of his knowledge. There can be no mistake in the 
perception of coincidences where the primary facts are well 
ascertained, for we instinctively judge in accordance with 
the premises. Here then the student has always wrought 
with the entire strength of his mind; and his assiduity in 
tracing the steps of previous inquiries springs from no 
excessive veneration for their perfections, but from an 
assurance that emulation can in no other way be so well 
promoted. 

As an encouragement to this work, let it be remember- 
ed that truth, which is the object of study, does ■ not flow 
merely from facts of a certain order.t Every fact has the 

* Inquiry into the Human Mind, Cliap. 1, Sec. 1. 
t The truth is, they be not the highest instances that give tiic 
securest information, as may be well expressed in the tale so com- 



loo SELF EDUCATION. 

same expression. All truth is in harmony with itself and 
leads infallibly to the same conclusion, though not always 
with the same dkectness. Science is the interpretation of 
nature. Whoever can seize upon the principle of arrang- 
ment displayed in the works before him, has all that science 
proposes to teach. In confirmation of this, might be cited 
the history of almost every invention or discovery. The 
identity of lightning and the electric fluid was established 
on both sides of the Atlantic at the same time, with consider- 
able variation in the train of previous reflection, as also in 
the practical experiment. Seldom is the honor of a dis- 
covery due to one man, and the historian finds it difficult to 
adjust the claims of rival pretentions. Nor indeed si it 
easier to tell in what age, or in what country an art was 
invented. Not in a few instances has the discovery or in- 
vention been the eff"ect of accident ; in others it has been 
the eff'ect of premeditated design ; and in all, the wonder 
has been, that so palpable a truth should have remained so 
long a secret. Persons may therefore hope, let their pur- 
suits be as they will, to make observations that will be 
useful. Nor is it certain to what science such observations 

inon of the philosopher, that while he gazed upwards to the stars, 
fell into the water ; for if he had looked down he might have seen 
the stars in the water^ but looking aloft he could not see the water 
in the stars. So it cometh often to pass, that mean and small 
things discover great, better than great can discover the small : 
and therefore Aristotle notelh well, 'that the nature of every thing 
is best seen in its smallest portions.' And for that cause he in- 
quireth the nature of a commonwealih, first in a family, and the 
simple conjugations of man and wife, parent and child, master and 
servant, which are in every cottage. Even so likewise the nature 
of this great city of the world, and the policy thereof, must be first 
sought in mean concordances and small portions. So we see how 
that secret of nature, of the turnmg of iron touched with the load 
stone towards the north, was found out in needles of iron, not in 
bars of iron." — Advancement of Learning^ B. 2, 



UEANS. 101 

■will most contribute. Buchan, whose work bids fair to 
outlive the professional reproach with whioh it was hail- 
ed, says, that most of the improvements in medical 
science have been suggested by persons who were not of 
the profession. The best confirmation of this remark is 
the sovereign authority of common sense as acknowledge 
in the most popular and valuable works of the day. From 
these the dogmatism of former times is excluded under a 
conviction that the rational principle is the only test of 
philosophic inquiry. 

5. Analytical reasoning. Nearly allied to observation 
is that intellectual analysis always employed in the investi- 
gation of truth. It often happens to the ambitious youth 
that opportunities for cultivation are beyond his reach. 
Acquiescence is impossible. Let the difficulties be ever so 
great, the indomitable spirit knows its own strength, and 
will not yield. Every mind is susceptible of emotions, 
and the very pain inspired by a sense of destitution, fur- 
nishes materials for abundant reflection. The soul will in- 
vestigate the causes of its own misery, and pry into the 
nature of things until it discovers those great principles 
on which improvement and happiness rest — principles which 
constitute the goal where the student, whether rich or 
poor, stops from desire as wcU as necessity. Little diiier- 
ence does it make, whence we derive the fact subjected to 
this analysis. Truth, as before remarked, is alike in every 
fact, and in its essence inhabits whatever can possibly en- 
gage our notice. It is therefore not necessary that all as- 
pirants should move in the same sphere. All the essential 
elements of truth surround each human being at every 
step in life ; still more, they inhere in his very nature, and 
are inseparable from his constitution as a rational crea- 
ture. But the man of genius pours over his subject with 
an intense anxiety to enlarge the boundaries of knowledge ; 
be is not content to stop where others have done ; he must 



102 SELF EDUCATION. 

have other if not better reasons, and in short he is impelled 
by a sense of duty to be original, deep and independent in 
his conclusions. It is only by subjecting the stereotyped 
lessons of science to this process, that we can develope 
those latent truths on which the progress of knowledge de- 
pends. That propositions .or principles now received as 
elementary are susceptible of further analysis to an indefi- 
nite extent, is a fact no less certain in its character than 
extensive in its application. " The stage at vfhich one in- 
f[uirer stops, is not the limit of analysis, in reference to the 
obj ect, but the limit of tlie analytic power of the individual. 
Inquirer after inquirer discovers truths^ which were involv- 
ed in truths formerly admitted by us, without our being 
able to perceive what was comprehended in our admission. 
It is irot absolutely absurd to suppose that whole sciences 
may be contained in propositions that now seem to us so 
simple as scarcely to be susceptible of further analysis, but 
which hereafter when developed by some more penetrating- 
genius, may, without any change in external nature, pre- 
sent to man a new field of w^onder and of power."* 

'§. Expansion of sentiment. If the mind can not go 
abroad to gather from various sources, it takes hold upon 
whatever may be within reach, and out of just the material 
on hand a stately fabric is sure to rise.. A single thought 
must serve instead of libraries. Having one principle in 
possession the student feels himself connected with the im- 
mensity of truth, and it is soon perceived that the applica- 
tions of which each truth is susceptible are more extensive 
than the best powers can accomplish. This idea is illus- 
trated practically by all writers of fiction. They assume, 
in general, some leading fact, and on that alone build their 
jsttbsequent specula,tions. The fact that such works arc 

* Brown's Lectures on the Philosophy of the H«man Mind. Vol. 1 . 
age 490. 



MEANS. lOo 

commonly worse than useless, is to be imputed to the sen- 
timents introduced, and not to the manner in which 
they are written. A good author never wearies the 
reader by prolixity; however much he may expand the 
tliought, his sentences are not wanting in substance. Let 
the reader take up the most attenuated essay of Johnson 
or Goldsmith, and he will find them rich in matter, as wra 
as beautiful in manner. True genius is prolific of thought ; 
it has the ability to dwell upon a theme without degenera- 
ting into fiction, or being disgusted with the necessary un- 
certainties of all intellectual labor. Some of the best 
works extant have been produced in this way ; their authors 
began them with no intention of writing so extensively, 
but were induced to change their design by finding that 
the subject adnutted of greater amplification. Speaking of 
his Essay on the Human Understanding, Mr. Locke says, 
"when I first put pen to paper, I thought all I should 
have to say on this matter, would have been contained in 
one sheet of paper, but the farther I went, the larger pros- 
pect 1 had; new discoveries led mo still on, and so it gre^ 
in.sensibly to the bulk it now appears in."* Another 
scarcely less celebrated work — the Saints' Kcst — grew up 
in the same manner. " The second book which I wrote," 
says Mr. Baxter, "and the first which I began, was that 
called The Saints' Everlasting Rest. I began to write on 
the subject, intending but a quantity of a sermon or two, 
but being continued long in my weakness, where I had no 
books, and no better employment, I pursued it, till it was 
enlarged to the bulk in which it is published." 

7. Universality of thouglit. Although it may often be 
necessary to spend much time in tracing the various rela- 
tions of a single thought, yet there are too many who con- 
fine their researches to one or a few branches of inquiry, 

*• Epistle to the reader, . 



10-1 SELP EDUCATION. 

Not that it is possible even for genias to excel in every de- 
partment; tMs is not to be expected or desired. But 
when important conclusions are to be established, it is 
essential that the mind should comprehend the several re- 
lations of the facts to which it has arrived. When conclu- 
sions rest upon a narrow base, it is with great difficulty 
that the mind can be brought to feel their force, and to 
many, they will always appear no better than consequen- 
ces deduced from hypothesis. The mind can judge of 
things only according to what it knows, and where its 
knowledge is insufficient if it presumes to act at all, there 
must necessarily be an exhibition of folly. Such persons 
are not more ready to receive a mystery, nor more easily per- 
suaded than others, but they are capricious,' believing where 
they should not, and refusing to believe where tlierc arc 
sufficient grounds of faith. And this error must alwajs 
exist where the intellect is not accustomed to survey the 
entire system of things. 

B}-- extending his observations to other departments of 
knowledge, the solitary inquirer has it in his power to de- 
termine the value of all existing science, for every known 
fact must be understood in conformity with the whole. If 
facts shall yet be discovered which clash with any of our 
principles, we must immediately modify our previous views 
to meet the demands of truth. The arts and sciences are 
constantly changing from this very cause. New discove- 
ries are renovating and enlarging former systems, and the 
prospect of improvement increases with every accession of 
facts. Now these discoveries are most frequently made by 
men who, for some reason, have avoided the common path. 
And in estimating their merits, praise seems due to the 
course they took, rather than to the vigor of their powers. 
A popular writer has indeed cautioned us against relying 
upon thought for the acqtiisition of any part of our knowl- 



MEANS. 105, 

edge. " By thinking," eays lie, " we can arrange what we do 
know, so that we can more readily use it, and we make 
room for other knowledge ; but we can not think ourselves 
into an acquaintance with even the simplest thing that we 
do not know by some other means. It is the behef that we 
can; that thought can do what thought never did, can do, 
or was intended to do, which lies as a stumbUng block iu 
our path, and hinders us from knowing a great many things 
that would be very useful as well as very pleasant to us."* 
If this singular view of the intellectual economy were to 
be regarded, we should soon cease to think, and the facts 
furnished by observation would remain undigested in the 
mind; there would be neither inference nor appHcation in 
reference to any thing we know. But in fact there can 
be no such thing, for the observation which he recommends, 
is but a mode of thinking. It is to be sure a mode of 
thought not altogether so prolonged as the miud often has 
occasion to employ, but at the same time it is as really 
thinking as any other exercise of the intellect. f 

8. Combination of practice and theory. Merely theo- 
retical education has been subversive of the best interests 
of learning. The student removed too much from those 
associations which in practical life so powerfully assist the 
mind, usually retains but a small part of his acquisitions, 
and these from the circumstances under which they were 
ncquired are very imperfectly available. It has been con- 

* Mu^ie, Popular Guide to the Observation of Natui-^, p. 32. 

t Locke calls '' Perception the first simple idea of reflection." — 
He adds: " Perception as it is the first faculty of the mind, exer- 
cised about our ideas ; so it is the first and simplest idea we have 
from reflectioD, and is by some called thinking in general." (Book 
2. chap 2. sec. 1.) If perception may be considered as an act of 
the mind, much more may observation which clearly conveys tks 
klea of thinking, otxA intellectual exertion. 



106 SELF EDUCATION. 

jectured, and not without probability, that only about one 
in every thousand of those who now study Latin ever 
acquire a tolerable knowledge of that language. Former- 
ly it must have been very diflFerent, as scholars generally 
were able to read and write that language with facility ,^ and 
many of them could speak it with fluency. Now we can 
not account for this difference except on the ground that 
the mode of instruction has deteriorated. To study Latin 
was once almost as easy to the English, and miTch more 
common, than to study their vernacular tongue ; then the 
language was employed for practical purposes, and to 
the study of abstract rules and definitions was joined the 
force of habit — habit, without which such acquisitions can 
neither be perfect nor permanent. If scholars do not suc- 
ceed so well as they then did, it is because their attempts 
are not sustained by practice ; because it is nearly impos- 
sible to learn a language which we do not use.* 

* This view of the subject is not presented as new. While 
Latin was yet used for composition, the futility of attempting to 
]earn it exclusively from books was felt and acknowledged. Mr. 
Locke who wrote extensively in this language, has suggested the 
better course, and the only one that can render the study of Latin, 
or of any other language, reasonably successful. 

" But how necessary soever Latin may be to some, and is thought 
to be to others, to whom it is of no manner of use or service, yet 
the ordinary way of learning it in a grammar-school, is that, which 
having had thoughts about, I can not be forward to encourage. — 
The reasons against it are so evident and cogent, that they have 
prevailed with some intelKgent persons to quit the ordinary road, 
not without success, though the method made use of was not ex- 
actly that which I imagine the easiest, and in short is this : to 
trouble the child with no grammar at all, but to have Latin as 
English has been, without the perplexity of rules, talked into him » 
for, if you will consider it, Latin is no more unknown to a child* 
when he comes into the world, than English ; and yet he learns 
English without master, rule, or grammar ; and s« might he Latin 



MEANS. 107 

"We arc not unfrequcntly embarrassed by the repug- 
nance of Ssbolars to the sheer didactics of the school-room. 
They arc anxious for instruction, but the initiatory process 
to most sciences is so painful and repulsive, that their pa- 
tience is exhausted before they are enough advanced to feel 
the inherent impulses of truth. In this way discourage- 
ment is dealt out to thousands in the incipient stages of 
instruction, and they are left to deplore some fancied idioc- 
rasy, or luckless conjunction of the stars, as the potent 
cause of their misfortune. But the real cause consists in 
the dismemberment of nature's plan. "We have detached 

too, as TuUy did, if he had somebody always to talk to him in tliis 
lanffuagc. And when wc so often sec a French woman teach an 
Enfjlish girl to speak and read French perfectly, in a year or two, 
without any rule of grammar, or any tiling else, but prattling to 
lier; I can not but wonder, how gentlemen have been overseen 
this way for their sons, and tliouglit them more dull or incapable 
than tiieir daughters. If therefore a man could be got, who himself 
ppeaking good Latin, could always be about your son, talk con. 
staiitiy to him, and suffer him to speak or read nothing else, this 
will be the true and genuine way, and that which I would propose." 
Locke on Education, Sec. 165. 

The case with which children learn a language has often been 
remarked, and some have accounted for it by supposing them pos- 
scssed of a peculiar faculty, which, decaying in after life, leaves 
the adult less capable of such acquisitions. 

'' The readiness with which a child acquires a language may 
well be called a rational instinct: foi during the time that his 
knowledge is built up, and that he learns to handle the implements 
of thought, he knows no more of what passes within himself, than 
he does of the structure of the eye, or of the properties of liglit, 
while he attends to the impressions on his visual sense, and gives 
to each impression its appropriate name. As tlie memory becomes 
stored with words and the mmd accustomed to their application, 
this readiness of verbal acquisition gradually decays, and at length, 
with some persons, almost disappears. That this is true, I need 
enly appeal to the experience of those, who after being disused to 



108 SELF EDUCATION. 

parts, to dissever -which, if it be not death, is at least an 
end of utility. That a child will walk and talk and reason 
is too evident to be disputed ; and yet all these things are 
learned in some way. The truth is, they are self-learned, 
that is, practically, or according to nature. Nor is there 
any thing undesirable to the juvenal mind in the process 
of these acquisitions. Under the tuition of nature they 
learn almost unconsciously, and each step of the progress 
is attended with delight and an irrepressible anxiety to 
proceed. A perfect system of instruction would be attend- 

puch studies, have attempted to learn a language. They will tell 
you of their feelings of mental drudgery and intolerable fatigue 
during their slow, laborious progress, in acquiring what a child 
gains without knowing how, and a young person learns cheerfully 
and without a sense of toil." Discourse on Classical Science, &Ci-r 
by Adam Sedgwick, M. A., F. R. S., Trin. Coll., Cam., Eng. 

But lacts afford no countenance to this hypothesis. A child 
would learn no faster than an older person, if doomed to labor 
under the same disadvantages ; indeed we can scarcely suppose it 
capable of learning a language at all by such means, and it is only 
by the most invincible efforts that persons of maturer years ever 
make any tolerable progress. Proceeding, however, on better 
principles, the old, as well as the young, can always acquire lan- 
guages — and acquire them too with facility. Of the thousands of 
foreigners who come to this country, very few fail to learn our 
language in a short time. This is done mostly without books, or 
formal instruction of any kind, and in the same manner that a 
child learns its native dialect. Latin and Greek might be gained 
with equal rapidity if pursued under similar advantages, and with- 
out such advantages the study of them must necessarily be abor- 
tive. 

Milton, who wrote at a still earlier period, appears to have been 
of the same opinion with Locke. He thus speaks of the common 
course : ''We do amiss to spend seven or eight years merely in 
scraping together so much miserable Latin and Greek, as might 
be learned otherwise easily and delightfully in one year." Tractate 
on Education. 



MEANS. 109 

0(1 With siraflar effects when applied to any of the sciences. 
Th<j great peculiarity of nature's method of teaching, 
consists in a scries of imitations, or incessant praatical at- 
tempts ; on these hinge the whole- of this extraordinary 
success. Nature evidently pays but little regard to theor- 
ies. She sets her pupils immediately to copying. And if 
authority like this may be allowed to suggest the most 
efficient mode of instruction, we must fix upon that which 
employs immediately in practical operations the powers of 
the learner. The astonishing success which so frequently 
attends efforts at self- education is mainly attributable to 
this very circumstance. Compelkd through a want of 
most of the ordinary means of instruction, they who thus 
distinguish themselves enter at once upon a course of ori- 
ginal observations, guided by such hints as they have 
gleaned from common sources of information ; and the 
result is, that instead of treasuring up the ideas of other?, 
and leaving their own minds destitute of original know- 
ledge, they soon acquire those habits of close thinking and 
deep research so essential to eminence. Sir William Her- 
schel and David Rittenhouse, two of thc' brightest lights 
in modern astronomy, began their successful experiments 
and observations almost coeval with their first acquaintance 
with the science. And this is the course universally pur- 
sued out of the schools in communicating the arts and 
sciences. Society left to itself instinctively proceeds in 
the only natural method of teaching.- Many who are 
eminent mechanics never had any instruction, and nearly 
all mechanics acquire their knowledge of their respective 
trades with very little written or oral instruction. Indeed 
no reliance could be placed upon merely verbal tuition. It 
might lead to a knowledge of the theory, but could never 
impart an actual possession of the art. This being settled 
with regard to the mode of studying the arts, it becomes a.r 



110 SBLP EDUCATION. 

question how far the same principle is applicable to the 
study of literature and the sciences of the schools. Art, 
literature, and science, are parts of the same thing ; there 
is no generic difference between them, and, consequently 
what holds true of one, must with proper restrictions, hold 
true of all the rest. It follows therefore that the study of 
abstract rules unaccompanied by a practical application of 
them, can never make a scholar, or at least will not be 
more efficient for that purpose than the contemplation of a 
work of art in producing an artist, " It ought never to be 
forgotten," says Dr. Dick, "that the habit of accurate 
composition depends more on practice, and the stud}^ of 
good writers, than on a multitude of rules ; and I appeal 
to every one who is in the habit of composing, whether, 
in the moment of committing his thoughts to writing, he 
ever thinks of the rules of syntax, except, perhaps, some 
of those now specified."* He had just cited three or four 
of the principles of syntactical arrangement as sufficient, in 
his opinion, for the early information of students. I 
would only remark, that what is true of the rules of syn- 
tax, as a help to writing, is equally applicable to rhetoric, 
aud most of the other prerequisites of authorship. Hence 
it appears that nature may succeed without art, but art 
without nature never can. Genius has ever shown itself 
independent of formal rules, audits most valuable produc- 
tions have originated in the absence of those advantages, 
which, by superficial observers, are considered essential to 
greatness. So purely original is the mind in its achieve- 
ments, that it seems to lay aside aU direction and trust 
entirely to its own powers. For this, if for no other rea- 
son, the acquisition of abstract rules should be regarded of 
inferior importance to intellectual cultivation. The imme- 
diate effects of education conducted upon this principltj 

* Mental lUuminationj &c., p. 130. 



MEANS. Ill 

would be various and eminently happy. Sucli useless 
abstractions and antiquated lumber as have been indiscrim- 
inately forced upon the attention of youth — things which 
can never be reduced to practice, would give place to ele- 
ments of instruction, precisely adapted to their wants. — 
Years of time now thrown away, because spent upon studies 
of no practical use, would be sa.vcd for the nobler purposes 
of life. Instead of transmitting to posterity the exact 
lessons that were taught a hundred years ago, the march 
of improvement would be faciUtated, and new discoveries 
and principles equal if not superior to any now known, 
would be added to those of former times. Franklin, Watt, 
and Jenner, with their thousand compeers would seem to 
live again ; and the vantage ground of knowledge would 
no longer be contingent to them, to whom nature had not 
denied a capacity for learning. 

I only intend to say that the points to which reference 
has been made are characteristics ; not that they are the 
outlines of a perfect system. Perhaps it is impossible 
accurately to define the elements of a successful practice. 
When contrasted with its opposite, the difference will 
always be obvious, yet the distinction is too subtle to be 
embodied in words. Original principles can not be defined 
— we can only name them, and enumorate some of their 
manifestations. We can never tell precisely in what fonn 
the love of science will display itself; nor is this to be re- 
gretted since the result is always the same. Knowledge 
is a species of property and the cumulative process sub- 
stantially the same as that by which money is acquired. — 
Whatever would be rational as a practical rule in other 
afi"airs, may easily be transferred for the government of 
literary pursuits. Does business require to be closely and 
extensively pursued to render it profitable ? The same is 
true of study, which is only another department of labor, 



112 SELF EDUCXTIOJT. 

and attended with equal certainty of success. Science i* 
truth elaborated' by thinking, whether recorded on tha 
leaves of a book, or. retained by the memory alone. 

My observations on this subject have been dictated by 
a belief that ultimate success in self- education depends 
upon invincible firmness, founded on a conscious capacity 
for intellectual pursuits. And, abstract as these remarks 
may seem, it is hoped they wiU furnish some idea of the 
inceptive workings of mind anterior to its bursting from 
obscurity with powers which command the admiration of 
the world. We have omitted those rules of study which, 
although seldom written, are practically enjoined in all 
good seminaries ; they are such as the good sense of a 
person would naturally suggest for his own benefit, or ra- 
ther, such as literary occupation enforces upon the atten- 
tion of those engaged in it, and consist essentially in 
nothing more than discreetly using the faculties we possess. 
The real advantages of literary institutions are often over- 
looked by those who are debarred from attending them, 
and- an anxiety to enjoy advantages wholly imaginary, 
prevents their retrieving, by suitable efforts, the real mis- 
fortunes of th-eir condition. In view of this it would be 
very useful to thorn, to spend some time- at such an institu- 
tion by which they would become acquainted with scholas- 
tic habits, and also learn, that even at school, knowledge 
can not be gained without close application to study — the 
only condition of self- education. 



HEANS. H'3 



Section V. Mechanical Facilities. 



1. Books. The nature of many things is lost in their 
antiquity. What was at first solely an effect, from having 
been subsequently productive of many effects, is mistaken 
for an original cause. In a former chanter it -was observed 
that colleges were arn effect of classical education, and not 
originally its cause ; but the same may, with equal truth, 
be affirmed of books and of all the advantages to be de- 
rived from them. The literature of the present day is, 
M'ith a few exceptions, not very ancient. Our books did 
not nroducc the sciences of which they treat, but on the 
contrary, the invention and maturity of the sciences pro- 
duced the books. Some sciences had been invented and 
taught orally for many years before any written record of 
them was made for the public. Such as would excuse 
themselves from the prosecution of truth for no other 
reason than the want of a book, must, therefore, be re- 
buked by all the splendid triumphs of genius for the last 
three hundred years. Prior to that period, or before the 
art of printing was invented, books could scarcel}' be 
reckoned among the facilities for acquiring knowledge — 
they were too dear to be generally availalde, and too few 
to afford sufficient variet3^ Under such' circumstances the 
works of authors were left to accumulate in public libra- 
ries or in the hands of the rich, while those distant from 
these depositories, and especially the poorer class of people, 
were necessarily deprived of those advantages which the 
typographic art has now made almost universal. 

A book is but a mere record of what the mind ha? 
done, and though very useful as a cuide to inquirers and 



Hi SELF EDUCATION. 

nearly indispensable as a reference to those already learned, 
it can be regarded only as a convenience ; like other con- 
veniences it is far from being essential. Intellectual 
fabrics of this kind may sometimes reproduce themselves, 
but they are more commonly spontaneous productions on 
which the mind is as little dependent as any other cause 
is on its effects. Books are a never-failing consequence of 
intelligence ; they have been manufactured by all nations 
and by all persons whenever they liave found any ideas 
worth vaiting. "When letters are employed as the shrine 
of knowledge, books must follow as a matter of course, 
for it is only by collection and arrangement in some form 
that letters can be made to answer this purpose ; hence, 
however useful books may be, they are to be considered the 
effect, and not the cause, of mental improvement. 

That books afford great assistance is undeniable, but it 
must be remembered that they assist us to acquire only 
what others have known. Our march over the beaten path 
of science may be greatly accelerated by them, but they 
can not guide us in the unknown regions of intellectual 
discovery. Here the mind is compelled to act for itself, 
and the independence which thus ultimately proves to be 
xinavoidable might safely have been adopted at the very 
commencement of its inquiries. 

2. Reading. Reading is a facility, noble and almost 
unbounded; it introduces us to all the recorded wisdom of 
the past, and, if thinking were not the soul of improve- 
ment, would probably constitute the utmost limit of our 
inquiries. The natural sources of information, except 
reflection, are necessarily circumscribed, and it is only by 
means of a mechanical arrangement of arbitrary characters 
that this deficiency can be supplied. Even reflection or 
thought, which knows no bounds and needs no external 
aid, however vast its achievements, must depend upon let- 



MEANS, 115 

ters to give permenance to its acquisitions. But reading 
ia chiefly valuable because it gives a sensible manifestation 
of things be^'ond the narrow sphere of personal knowledge, 
thus as it were making words, pronounced in distant coun- 
tries and in remote ages, and which naturally could have 
been heard only by the few then and there present, fall 
upon our cars with the same force as if we had formed 
part of the original auditory. An art which can over- 
come the evils of distance and time, thereby ^■irtually con- 
stituting us pupils of the greatest masters and possessors 
of the aggregated treasures of history, is undoubtedly, as 
a means of education, next in importance to that act of 
the mind by which it elicits truth and fabricates systems 
for itself. In order to be profitable, reading should be 
extensive. A student should read not only what is con- 
"v'oaient, but whatever comes in his way that is worth 
reading. No good book should escape him. Mr. Todd, 
in his Student's Manual, has particulai-ly cautioned against 
devoting too much time to reading ; a caution, by the way, 
as uaphilosopliical as it is unnecessary. The hackneyed 
lessons of the text book are not the whole of what should 
pass through the mind of a student. If it should be 
thought advisable to delay this universal research into 
books till the period of academical studies is past, there 
are objections against this also, to wliich there appears no 
satisfactory answer. Those who were readers before they 
began these studies will find it hard to resist their habits : 
while such as were not, and do not become extensive read- 
ers during this period — or upon the occurrence of the first 
opportunity — may be set down with that class who, to use 
the words of Byron, " ought to have learned to make the 
paper they waste." Miscellaneous reading should not 
infringe on the regular lessons; nor will it have any such 
tendency where there is much self-government. It is ia 



116 SELff EDXTtATION. 

the morning of life that the general intelligence supplied 
by booka is most needed; when the character is to be 
formed, when plans for life are to be laid, then, if ever, 
the mind requires the aid of extensive research. But 
commonly at this period the attention is confined to ele- 
ments as a preparation for the future, and it is only after 
that future has been gained by the individual, that other 
information is considered necessary or practicable. It 
may be objected that a whole life would be insufficient to 
read all the works which have accumulated in the libraries 
of the learned. So much the better. If they were a thou- 
sand-fold more extensive than they are, they would be only 
the more valuable for whatever they exceeded the powers 
of any single reader. Those who think all parts of what 
an author writes of equal importance, who read by rote, 
and devour with the same avidity introductions, reflections, 
corrolaries, and so forth; ought indeed to stipulate for 
some limits to what they thus indiscriminately consume. 
Even the slightest acquaintance with a valuable author 
has its uses; and where all that could be desired is not 
practicable, the little which may be gained ought to be the 
more highly esteemed. Sir Walter Scott, and many other 
eminent literary characters, owed more to their habits of 
research among books than to any other circumstance — 
genius excepted. Their reading, however, was almost im- 
measurable, and pursued with reference to plans of their 
own which could not have been perfected by other means. 
3. Writing. The mind deriA'cs the same advantages 
from the pen in delineating its thoughts, that the painter 
derives from his pencil in spreading his conceptions upon 
canvass. Writing is in fact, but a species of intellectual 
painting. By a mechanical process, thought is indicated t© 
the eye with as much facility as sound indicates it to the ear. 
But the benefit of writing does not consist in merely 



THEANS. 117 

transferring our ideas to legible characters; a greater 
benefit is found in the aid, which it imparts to acts of in- 
vestigation. Not that the mind knows a thing more per- 
fectly when it is written, than when it is not, but frotti the 
difficulty of retaining thoughts in the memory, we rarely 
think extensively without some more effectual means of 
preserving our intellectual labors. With those who do not 
write, truth is apt to exist in the form of principle only — 
of principle unexpanded and unapplied. The art of writ- 
ing enables us to draw out and amplify this abstract ma- 
terial to the best advantage, and by furnishing assistance 
to the thinking faculty prompts it to greater exertion. To 
tliis increased activity of the mind, more than to any thing 
else, we may ascribe the corrective influence which attends 
the habit of writing. " It is wonderful," says Dr. Miller, 
'•'how far the crudeness and inadequacy of a man's know- 
ledge on a given subject, may be hidden from his own mind, 
until he attempts to express what he knows on paper. He 
then finds himself at a loss at every step, and can not pro- 
ceed without much extension, and no less correction, of his 
former attainments. Nay, sometimes he finds that he must 
begin again, from the very foundation, and that he ha,s not 
really mastered any part of the subject."* To the same 
effect is the well-known maxim of Lord Bacon, that 
" Reading maketh a full man ; conference a ready man ; 
and writing an exact man."t That he relied upon 
writing for nothing but to assist the memory is evident 
from that part of the sentence which immediately fol- 
lows the above quotation : " and, therefore, if a man 
writ'e little, he had need have a great memory." The 
TApidity with which many writers compose shows that 

* Letters on ClericaJ Manners and Habit?; p. 231, 
t Escays, 50. 



11' SELF EDUCATION. 

their thoughts are already perfect, and that they have onlj 
to transfer them as fast as legible characters can be made. 
Yet this is not the case with all, and, for want of that 
mental industry which is secured by writing, many uncon- 
sciously remain in ignorance and in error. Neither should 
it be forgotten that literary composition is no infallible 
preventive of these evils. The labor of writing wiU not 
always induce caution and depth in thinking ; consequently 
much that is written partakes of all the imperfection pe- 
culiar to an inactive state of mind. 

4. Apparatus. " But certain it is, that unto the deep, 
fruitful, and operative study of many sciences, especially 
natural philosophy and physic, books be not the only in- 
strumentals ; wherein also the beneficence of man hath not 
been altogether wanting : for we see spheres, globes, astro- 
labes, maps, and the like have been provided, as appurte- 
nances to astronomy and cosmography, as well as books ; 
we see likewise that some places instituted for physic have 
annexed the commodity of gardens for simples of all sorts, 
and do likewise command the use of dead bodies for anato- 
mies."* It is to the great improvement, which, since the 
days of Bacon, has been made in this class of facilities, 
that we are indebted for some of the principle discoveries 
in natural science. Nature herself is, indeed a vast lab- 
ratory where every element is also an instrument, and 
every instrument is prolific of instruction. 

5. Libraries. Books are so cheap that with some little 
exertion the various elementary works may readily be ob- 
tained ; but these are by no means to be deemed sufficient, 
if more extensive collections can be procured. In general, 
the money which would enable an individual to purchase 
a library for himself, would, if directed to that object, 
furnish him with every possible facility for education; 

* Advancement of Learning, B. S. 



MBAN3 119 

such persons have their choice of advantages — they may 
buy for themselves what others can at best but have ac- 
cess to tlirough generosity or hire. Largo collections of 
books afford opportunities to the student for which he will 
seek in vain elsewhere, and it is a most gratifying circum- 
stance tliat these helps are generally available on exceed - 
incly favorable terms. Public libraries are either free, or 
the same as free to all who will make a proper use of them. 
But at whatever cost or labor such assistance may bo 
gained, the advantages will repay the expense and the toil 
a thousand fold. 



Section VI. Patronage. 



It is often of service to youth to point out the means by 
which they are destined to rise. By this means tlic Utopi- 
an schemes of childhood, the wild vagaries of imaginatioB, 
so common and so innocent at that age of life, will be seen 
in their true light, and remembered only as the inconclu- 
sive reasonings of a mind too little informed, to comprehend 
the conditions of its existence. Before a knowledge of 
the world has disclosed the laws which control the distri- 
bution of property, we naturally think that a noble design 
can not fail to find sufficient pecuniary support, nor to 
meet with that encouragement and countenance obviously 
needed in every difficult enterprise. But it requires no 
lengthened experience in the practical operations of great- 
ness to show us that hopes of this nature are fallacious. 
Yet, rejecting all secondary assistance — such as, patrimony, 
gifts, emoluments, influence, and so forth — there is suffi- 
cient patronage for every well constituted mind. He who 
thinks of patronage — in the ordinary sense of that term, 



120 SELF BDUOA'TION. 

<loes but di'eam ; yet sucli is the strong tendency of the 
youthful mind, to lean upon this most precarious of resour- 
ces that it becomes necessary to indicate, not only the value 
of this fictitious assistance, but those stern realities on 
which successful enterprise is always hinged. 

1. Want. There are advantages in want. However 
paradoxical such a proposition may seem, time has long 
since, given it the authority of a maxim. It is an old 
adage, that necessity is the mother of invention. But th« 
important truth of this proverb has seldom had an exten- 
sive application. Some occasional success may have "been 
imputed to the urgency of want, yet it has not been ac- 
knowledged as the stimulous of greatness. It has pro- 
voked no gratitude as a benignant agent of Providence ; it 
has seemed an evil, even where, bat for its inspiration, life 
would have been a blank. The destitution of most young 
persons is better calculated to elicit just sentiments than 
a profusion of positive means. Experience has shown that 
where there is no want there is no exertion. The feeling 
fjf need which presses so heavily upon the young aspirant, 
is worth more to him than thousands of gold and silver, for 
it is by the aid of feelings like these that he becomes irre- 
sistable in contending for the objects of his ambition. — 
His soul is energized by a consciousness of impending 
evils, and this energy is of itself equal to any emergency. 
Fame hasher Lent. And from the deep, and never-to-be- 
forgotten sufferings of his early career the champion of 
truth derives a cast of mind precisely adapted to the exi- 
gences of his future life. Cut off from ordinary helps, it 
may be, or perchance, having designs wholly extraordinary, 
and meeting with no corresponding helps, he assumes re- 
sponsibilities and executes measures on that extended 
scale which takes a universe into its calculations. This 
intellectual hardihood never fails to spring forth, sooner or 



MEANS. 121 

later, where the mind is left to itself. On the contrary, 
where facilities abound, a habit of dependence is created, 
and we insensibly lean upon others for advice and for in- 
struction, until, from disuse merely, our own minds are 
no longer to be trusted. There is no way of avoiding 
perpetual minority, or premature dotage, but to dash out 
of the beaten track, to set up for one's self independently 
of others. This implies no hostility to othere or their 
views; it is merely an assumption of that individuality 
which belongs to man as an accountable being and without 
which even his social improvement is impossible. Necessity 
presents UH, however, only negative advantages. Indispen- 
sable they are, but they are not alone sufficient. 

2. Providence. There is a peculiar felicity in the 
thought that between us and the divine Omnipotence, there 
is no intervening agency. The association is grand be- 
yond all conception, and can not fail to exert an ennobling 
influence on whoever rightly indulges the reflection. All 
truth belongs to the Creator, and he imparts as much to 
his creatures as is consistent with their circumstances.- — 
And the enquirer, supported by a relation like this, can 
not easily despond. He does not know, but his Helper 
does ; and hence, if chagrined by disappointment, he enjoys 
the greatest possible proximity to those desirable arcana 
which have so universally engaged the solicitude of man- 
kind. It is thus that a sort of appeal is made from al! 
sublunary and momentary adjudication, to the develop- 
ments of an after life, and the conclusions of infinite 
Wisdom. This appeal, when properly made and solemnly 
felt ; that is, when it is the dictate of conscience, as well 
as of the mind, is one of the most auspicious events that 
can occur to the intellectual constitution. Rarely has a 
great genius appeared who had not to make a public re- 
cognition of his dependence on Providence ; not as a religious 



122 SELF EBUCATIOK, 

act, but as a sequence of argument, or, more plainly, as 
the result of his circumstances. Where great attainments 
are sought, proportionate assistance must be had ; but who 
or what is adequate to the necessities of him who takes 
the trackless path of discovery ? He may or may not be 
caressed after success has crowned his labors, but it is all 
one to him. The assistance by which he toiled is not one 
of those trifling influences that, like the thermometer, falls 
with every depression of external temperature ; it upholds 
him with equal dignity in the pursuit, and in the consum- 
mation of his object — when the world knows not, and also 
when it contemns the purpose of his ambition, 

3. Personal effort. I come now to that part of my 
subject more intelligible to the impracticcd eye of youth. 
If we may believe them, few would remain ignorant if any 
exertion of theirs could avail to the contrary. Not every 
act, no, nor any number of acts, vinless they are^of the 
right kind, will obviate the difficxilties in question. But 
there is a competency in juvenile powers notwithstanding. 
No permission is to be asked, as no one has either the 
power or the right to imprison the soul. Liberty, however, 
is a useless boon if other things are misunderstood. Each 
has what no other one can get from him. This is all the 
freedom that should be expected. Every youth should 
regard himself the artificer of his own fortune, be that 
fortune what it may. If he has means of any description, 
for any length of time, it will be because he could not be 
deprived of them by the antagonist forces crowding him 
on every side. Life, it is said, is a perpetual war against 
tendencies to decay, and the remark is not less applicable 
to knowledge, and the means of prosperity in general. In 
this respect all are on a level, no one having more than his 
individual might can command. Very certainly great ine- 
quality exists as to external advantages, if positive aids 



MEANS, 123 

c-an aloue be relied on, but that we caa never trust to them 
id more than proved by the negligence and supineness 
T-hioh a consciousness of their possession so generally 
inspires. Numerous instances of failure occur among those 
who trust to their own exertions, but the number is incon- 
fciderable when compared with a similar class who have had 
every pecuniary assistance ; and the faiku-e is not to be 
charged to any inherent deficiency of means. When not 
fauaed by error in the application of their powers, it has 
resulted from agencies over which it was never intended 
man should preside. Youth may expect assistance, they 
may think it very rational and very natural for tiicm to be 
■commiserated, but it is like reasoning in a circle, their 
expectation returns to them again, and they can never 
advance beyond their present position. The world is 
moved by motives that are easily apprehended. But gen- 
ius when it calls for patronage is obscure and unknown, 
liOt it come to light, let indubitable proofs of its existence 
be given, and there wiU be no complaint that it is not 
respected and sustained. I need not add, however, that at 
this stage it has a self-supporting power, and can do with- 
out the hitherto reluctant applause of the worlj. It has 
in fact laid the world tributary at its feet, and extorts now 
what it once solicited in vain. It would be all unjust to 
cay there were no seasonable patrons. Some there are ; 
yet how few the number, and how improbable that it will 
ever be greater !* Nor is it any cause of regret that 

* Improbable, because in a long succession of ages but few- 
have received assistance till after the period when it v»'as most 
needed, had transpired. Mtecenas, the patron of Virgil and Horace. 
is usually referred to as an instance of liberality to literary men, 
Hut these poets had long been celebrated before they enjoyed the 
favors of Moecenas. VVitliout this patronage they might have 
died IcBs wealthy, but not less renowned. Dr. Franklin, knew weli 
what sort of patronage genius reqiiired when he eetab'ishcd a ian4 



121: SELF EDUCATION. 

efficient patronage can seldom be found, inasmuch as it 
often brings with it a train of disagreeable consequences ; 
creating dependence inconsistent with liberty, even if it 
does not require perpetual inferiority as the price of its 
favors.f Powers that are inadequate to establish them- 
selves are beset with some radical defect that disqualifies 
them for high pretensions in this rugged world. Why 
should it not be so, since this is the place in which their 
qualities are to be tested ? Tears are shed in vain over 
talents that might have been conspicuous ; the fact that 
they were not so should allay all uneasiness at their fate. 
Doubtless some circumstances are more favorable to im- 
provement than others ; but it is the task of genius to rise 
above every difficulty — to force even difficulties into itn 
service, and make them its most efficient helps. Often has 
the pain occasioned by the absence of the usual facilitie.'j 
for science, so wrought upon the mind that the powers of 
observation have struck out a new path to eminence, and 
that necessity which seemed the precursor of ruin, has 

to be loaned conditionally to poor young men to aid them in tlie 
very commencement of their enterprise. Patrons are such as 
anticipate the development of talents ; they are such as. try to 
assist the infant Hercules, knovi^ing that the giant strength of 
maturer years will enable him to do for himself. 

t " Some were indeed admitted by caprice, when they least 
expected it, and heaped by Patronage with the gifts of Fortune ; 
but they were from that time chained to her footstool and condemn- 
ed to regulate their lives by her glances and her nods." Rambler, 
No. 91. 

The conclusion of this " allegory on the conduct of patronage'' 
is too happy to be omitted. '' The Sciences, after a thousand in- 
dignities, retired from the palace of Patronage, and having long 
wandered over the world in grief and distress, were led at last to 
the cottage of Independence, the daughter of Fortitude ; where 
they were taught by Providence and Parsimony to support them- 
selves in dignity and quiet." 



MEANS. 125 

proved the harbinger of fame. As well might the un- 
shorn Samson be bound with withes as the immortal mind 
tied to ignorance against its own consent. 

It may be doubted whether the connection between 
external advantages and scientific proficiency is well under- 
stood. Hitherto in the race of improvement, they that 
fiave had many means, and they that have had few, have 
prospered alike ; the pioneer artist or philosopher has ev^^n 
lield the pre-eminence, because there being no perceptible 
diiferenee between him and his successors, it is right that 
the first should hold the place which is his by seniority. — 
And we are obliged to conclude either that means are like 
the manna of the wilderness, of which "he that gathered 
much, had nothing over, and he that gathered little had no 
luck ;" or, that the mind of man is endowed with powers 
which elevate it above dependence upon adventitious cir- 
■cumstances. Of these opinions, though both amount to 
the same, the latter is of course the only one admissible. 

From premises like these, but one conclusion can be 
drawn. Genius is an alliance with Heaven, and its power 
over subordinate agencies must be derived frtmi the attrac- 
iion of its own splendor. Prior to its ascendancy in the 
estimation of others it must rely upon the intrinsic efficien- 
cy of its own powers. This may not seem an inviting 
view of our subject, but fidelity forbids a lighter shade. — 
It is not our object to amuse by commenting on the res- 
pective merits of difierent modes, but to give the substance 
of all modes. We aim at certainty, and can not stoop to 
that fastidiousness which shrinks from the bold outlines 
of truth. Let science be acquired as it may, these are the 
essential principles by which the student must be govern- 
ed. He will find in the long run, in the summing up, that 
besides the oppression of want, he had no patronage but 
tfod and his own right hand. 



128 aSLF EDUCATION. 



Section VII. Pecuniary Resources. 

The preceding section, I have no doubt, will be thought 

'to indicate plainly enough the general character of these 

resources. But this necessary self-dependence has its 

peculiar method of acquisition, and our object now is to 

note the practical details which that method imposes. 

1. Industry. Others may, or may not, be compelled to 
work, but the candidate for self- education, ordinarily has 
no alternative ; he must either labor industriously for the 
means of support, or abandon his literary hopes forever 
Where the desire for knowledge is hopefully strong, their 
v/ill be no reluctance in conforming to a necessity of this 
kind. Personal energy is a species of capital alwaj'S 
invested with pleasure in approved pursuits. An unwil- 
lingness to labor for the means of education is, of course, 
an unwillingness to labor for education itself, and bespeaks 
a mind of that class for the improvement of which no pro- 
vision has been made in the present allotments of human 
nature. Esamples too numerous to mention may be found 
of those who have risen to the highest eminence of learn- 
ing, unaided by any financial resources but their own in- 
dustry. With some this would be no difficult task, as they 
can command more lucrative situations than fall to the 
common lot ; still, industry has always beea found suffix 
cient for those who have relied on it, whatever might be 
its comparative returns. Almost any business will afford 
something more than a mere subsistence, and this surplus 
may be devoted to the purchase of books or other facilities 
of science ; but even where there is no excess — where all, 
and more than all, is absorbed by the current wants of 
physical life — there is still enough, because the mind can 



MEANS. 127 

think, and every thing is within the reach of thought. 
No occupation can monopolize intellectual capacity, and to 
the efforts of a determined mind, manual labor soon ceases 
to offer much resistance. As an encouragement, it should 
be observed that the world has to do only with the results 
of genius ; it is of no consequence to us whether the cele- 
brated authors of antiquity were rich or poor — as neither 
of these conditions could have had any sovereign influence 
over their productions. 

2. Economy. If judicious economy does not increase 
money, it aecomplislies the Fame thing by increasing the 
effects of money. It is therefore to be reckoned among the 
most important pecuniary advantages, and this whether we 
regard the wealthy or the indigent. A p'lor person who 
has any just idea of the value of knowledge can scarcely be 
the subject of temptations to extravagance ; a desire for 
learning excludes every wish for the frivolous objects on 
which money controlled by ignorance is usually lavished. 
Yet there is danger lest the very limited means which the 
impoverished student can command should seem to render 
even economy useless. But if the means are small there 
is only the greater need that they should be rigidly applied. 
It is not for us here to give particular directions for such 
disbursements, but we can not help remarking that they 
should always be governed by the principle which influ- 
enced Erasmus, when in like circumstances, he said, " As 
soon as I get money I will buy first Greek books, and then 
clothes."* This was good economy — it was strictly in 
accordance with his predominant purpose to obtain an 
education. The late Dr. Adam Clarke purchased his first 
Hebrew grammar with a half guinea which he found in the 
garden, while a charity student at Kingswood school. t — 

* Pursuit of Knowledge under Difficulties, vol. 1, p. 25. 
t Life, vol, l.p. 88. 



128 SELF EDUCATION, 

There is nothing peculiar in these examples — nothing but 
what every individual that has an honest and firm intention 
to acquire learning will constantly exhibit. With numbers 
who professedly aim at education there is none of this 
consistency, because they have none of the inspiration 
from which it originates. Equal desire wiU always pro- 
duce equal effort. 

8. Self-denial. This is an inexhaustible mine of wealth ; 
negative to be sure, but ever available, and not the less effi- 
cient for being of the negative order. In the present 
state of the world human necessities are of two widely 
different kinds, fancied and real, The former happily are 
much more numerous than the latter, and comprise the 
greater portion of those wants for the satisfaction of which 
money is demanded. Hence, although the real wants of 
nature have never varied, the actual cost of living has been 
extremely various at different times. Dr. Johnson esti- 
mates that a pension of two pounds which Henry the 
Eighth bestowed upon Roger Ascham, was at least equiva- 
lent to ten times that sum a century and a half later. — 
The estimate however is based partly upon a supposed 
difference in the nominal value of money. His remarks 
on that class of wants now under consideration are too 
important to be omitted. " But the value of money has 
an other variation which we are still less able to ascertain : 
the rules of custom or the different needs of artificial life, 
make that revenue little at one time which is great at 
another. Men are rich or poor, not only in proportion 
to what they have, but to what they want. In some 
ages, not only necessaries are cheaper, but fewer things 
are necessary. In the age of Ascham, most of the 
elegances and expenses of our present fashion were un- 
known; commerce had not yet distributed superfluity 
through the lower classes of the people, and the character 



MEANS. 129 

of a student implied frugality, and required no splendor 
to support it. His pension, therefore, reckoning together 
the wants which he could supply, and the wants from 
which he was exempted, may be estimated, in my opinion, 
at more than a hundred pounds a j'ear."* 

This train of expenses which the artificial habits of 
society have introduced is wholly within the power of self- 
denial, and may be set aside by all those who have suffi- 
cient firmness to try the experiment. Here, then, is a 
financial expedient which annihilates the costliness of edu- 
cation, and is thus, for all practical purposes, equal to a 
very considerable sum of money. Luxury has been aptly 
styled artificial poverty, because its demands, which are of 
our own creating, have no other effect than to cause a vast 
disproportion between the wants and the means of most 
individuals. These fictitious necessities are as imperative 
as they are boundless ; and the consequence is that they 
hold multitudes of human beings in the most abject 
slavery — ^a slavery only the more to be hated because of 
its merely imaginative character. Under these circum- 
stances life becomes a scene of restless, abortive toil for 
gratifications many of which are as low as they are unnc-<' 
cessary. Yet this is not all — not the worst ; since to gain 
means for such unnatural and unlimited indulgence, one 
starves, another contracts disease, a third becomes a knave, 
and all are made fools. But those who can not cheerfully 
and spiritedly repel this crushing tyranny, need not aim 
at self-education, for the votaries of science must be dis- 
enthralled. There are few who worship at the shrine of 
fashion that have any thing left to ofi'er upon the altar of 
learning, and the poor are never of this number; hence 
for them to seek knowledge is to seek nothing else. 

* Life of Ascham. 



130 



SELF EDUCATION. 



4. Retirement. It would be unjust to the reader not 
to refer him at once to the excellent work of Zimmerman 
on Solitude, where he Aviil find every thing connected with 
the intellectual bearings of this subject exhibited in the 
most engaging and satisfactory manner. Our remarks will 
be confined to the pecuniary advantagea of retirement. — 
Time is equivalent to money, because our time directed to 
any useful eraplojTnent, will command money. So that the 
time spent in study may be reckoned as an investment of 
money for that object — that h, for knowledge. Every hour 
and every moment which can be subtracted from other 
pursuits should be considered sacred to scieiice. And in 
order to saye time for this object, severe retrenchments 
should be made from sleep, conversation, and amusement. 
This is no theorizing, it has actually and often been 
done, and the time thus spent has been productive of 
some of the best works in the annals of science. No 
person who is able to labor or to manage any kind of 
business is so confined as to have no leisure moments, and 
there are few who have not hours in the course of the day 
and evening that might be employed in reading, or such 
ot-her studies as they should prefer. If these vacant 
seasons — these breaks in the ordinary routine of secular 
occupation, are seized on with avidity and claimed as the 
rightful property of a higher interest, they will be found 
to exert a disengaging influence u^pon other affairs. He 
that uses faithfully these little fragments of time will soon 
have as much time for study as health can admit or im- 
provement require. The improvement of such shreds of 
time demands a mental, if not a bodily, abstraction from 
other concerns. And I need not say that retirement is as 
welcome to the mind of a student as it is favorable to his 
studies. Let time be saved in this manner and the poor 
will find that money, more than money, is saved, because 



MEANS. 13t 

labor a3 well aa money is t}ic price of knowlodgc. Let no 
one complain of a want of money while time which in 
worth more than money is daily thrown away. 

5. Accommodations. There are many incidental accom- 
modations attendant upon every enterprise, which are 
unknown to the inexperienced. People are willing to help 
those who aro determined to help themselves. Not that 
they have large sums of money to give, or are ready to 
become patrons in any proper pcnse, but they are at least 
willing to stand out of the way, and occa.?ionally would 
not object to some slight expense by way of aiding intel- 
lect in its conflict with poverty. All such assistances are 
nothing more than is every day rendered as a mark of 
respect to activity, without reference to the object about 
which it is employed. On this principle, the student will 
sometimes obtain the gift of a book, or the use of a libra- 
ry ; and if at school, he may be considered somewhat in 
the settlement of his bills, Anotlicr species of help which 
I shall set down under this head is the concurrence of 
circumstances. Net only do the very elements seem to 
combine to favor the self-sustained youth, but the entire 
state of things is often found unexpectedly pliable. Dif- 
ficulties, which, in the distance, appear formidable, assume 
another aspect on a nearer approach. This incidental 
yielding of things to determined effort — this sort of ac- 
commodation which nature and the world bestow upon 
human energy, has a certain pecuniary value, and is there- 
fore to be recorded among the resources of such as are 
destined to high achievement. 

Should it bo thought these remarks have been of too 
negative a character, let it be borne in mind that money 
13 never wanted for its own sake. It is only for the effects 
which it can produce that money is of any value to us, 
and if these effects can be reached as well by other means* 



132 SELF EDUCATION. 

all will admit that such means are of the same value as 
money. From the nature of the case no great amount of 
money can come into the hands of the poor student who 
is directing his efforts mainly to intellectual acquisitions . 
for he sacrifices the chances of wealth to the desire of 
knowledge. But if the negative and incidental advanta- 
ges which we have specified are found sufficient for his 
object, then is there no cause for discouragement to him 
on whom the burden of such resources is thrown, not the- 
least necessity for further details on the svibject of fiscal 
accumulation. 



CtlAPTER VI, 
Hiiidraiices to Self Ediicaliou. 

This chapter is closely connected \Nitli the preceding 
one; that is a positive and this is a negative view of the 
pame subject. Many of the obstacles which the solitary 
student has to meet are not peculiar to his undertaking; 
they belong to that class of common difficulties which press 
upon all enterprises, and which can not be obviated by any 
change of method. These might be considered in a gen- 
eral treatise on education, but they need not bo discussed 
here ; neither is it necessary to give prominence to diffi- 
culties which the aspirant himself does not feel, and which 
can at most, exert only a remote influence upon his destiny. 

Sevei'al years since the author had the privilege of hear- 
ing the late Mr. Southwick,* deliver part of a course of 

* "Mr. Soiithwick's 'Lectures on Self Education,' delivered 
co-tcmporaneously with those on the Bible, and subsequently re- 
ported about a year previous to his death, before the Young Men's 
A.ssociation for IMiitnal Improvement in the City of Albany 
created a general interest, and secured for him, wherever the 
course was announced, the most intelligent aiid respectable audi- 
ences. These lectures were eminently v/orlhy of the ample gen- 
ius and diversified experience of their author." Biograpldeal 
Annual for 1841. Edited by Rufus W. GriswolJ, p. 167. 

The course was not extensive. One lecture was on History, and 
an other on the Philosophy of History. I heard but two, and 
having never seen the rest, am unable to say whether they were 
more to the point or not. 



13 i SELF EDUCATION. 

lectures on self- education ; and thougli that gentleman 
was a man of learning and ability, his lectures were want- 
ing in adaptation. They were able critical dissertations ; 
but not exactly pertiB#*ct to the subject. Our opinion 
then was, and still is, that defective and spurious litera- 
ture, or the difficulty of making a good selection of books 
and sciences, is not the main obstacle to self-education. 
Evils of this class are too refined to be of much conse- 
quence. There are more palpable, and more serious hin- 
drances which claim our attention, and to the consideration 
of these the following chapter is devoted. 

1. The want of time is undoubtedly one of the greatest 
dimcultics to be overcome. And yet so little power docs 
this circumstance exert over a resolute mind that it has 
riever been able to abridge nor even to rets.'d its acquisi- 
tions. Men of the most active habits and whose pursuits 
seemed to preclude all attention to literature have always 
found sufficient time both for writing and study. Some of 
them have indeed been the most volumnious writers of 
which we have any knowledge. 

The writings of Bjnaparte may be given as an instance 
of what is practicable under such circumstances. It is 
scarcely conceivable how his active military life allowed 
the least time for correspondence. Yet he appears to have 
written more than any of his contemporaries. " The cor- 
respondence of the Emperor," says Mr. Alison, " stiil pre- 
served in the archives of Paris, or in the custody of his 
generals, if pubhshed entire, would amount to many hun- 
dred volumes. From the valuable fragments of it pub- 
lished in the appendixes to General Matthien Dumas, and 
the works of General Gourgand and Baron Fain, on the 
campaigns of 1812, 1813, and 181-!, as well as the letters 
of Napoleon, contained in Nopiri's account of the Penin- 
sular war, some idea may be formed of the prodigious 



MEANS. , 135 

mental activity of a man, who, amid all the cares of cm- 
jiire, and all the distractions of almost incessant warfare, 
contrived, during the twetity }cars that he held the reins 
of power, to write or dictate probably more than the 
united works of Lope Do Vega, Voltaire and Sir Walter 
Scutt. nis secret and confidential corrcBpondcnce with 
the directory published at Paris in 1819, from 179G to 
1798 only, a work of great interest and variety, amounts 
to seven large closely -printed volumes ; and Lis letters to 
his generals, during that time, must Lave been twice as 
voluminous.'"'*' 

This is not a solitary instance even in modern times, fci' 
the works of General Washington amount to about seven- 
ty large manuscript volumes; and the Kirg of Prussia, 
Frederick the Greaf, was an extensive writer and withal 
a poet of no inferior pretensions. Of the ancients we 
need only mention Caesar and Pul_)biu6, and Xenophon, all 
o'i whom were eminent generals and equally eminent wri- 
ters. These authors wrote as well as those who were less 
active, and as well as they would, had themselves been 
less active; or, in other words, the limited time which they 
could command was no detriment to their labors. 

The self-educated have always progressed as rapidly in 
their studies as those v/ho have had every facility that the 
schools can bestow ; and they have prosecuted them, not 
only as far as such institutions could render assistance, but 
frequently much farther. Nor is this remarkable, fcr 
learning results from thouglit, and the mind is net depend- 
ent upon any arrangement of external circumstances for 
its capacity to think. The hands may be employed, but 
the intellect is free ; scholastic facilities may be wanting, 
but the mind can create them for itself. It is evident 

* History of Europe, chap. 30 . 



136 SELF EDUCATION, 

therefore that the most embarrassing avocations offer no 
effectual resistance to literary enterprise ; that neither the 
dangers and dissipation of the camp, nor the fatigues and 
cares of manual labor are incompatible with an allowance 
of time sufficient for the highest degree of intellectual 
culture. 

2. Next to the difficulties arising from a want of time 
are those ■which arise from a want of money. Ever- 
crowding necessity is the malevolent genius of men who 
are obliged to educate themselves. Poverty excludes them 
from the ordinary means of cultivation ar.d if they ever 
rise it must be without such facilities as pecuniary ability 
can procure. He who has money can command his time, 
and whatever assistance he pleases; but the poor must 
aim at self- education because he is poor. It is of no use 
to specify a thousand good works to a man who is not able 
to buy one ; nor need we tell him who is the best author 
on a given subject when he can never avail himself of 
means to make a purchase. Neither will it benefit him to 
know what sciences are most useful or what methods of 
study are most approved, unless they are shown to be 
within the reach of his financial resources. Eut there is 
one subject on which he needs instruction. He wants to 
know how to get money ; or — what is exactly equivalent 
— how to dispense Avith the use of money and yet accom- 
plish his object. This secret, which by the way can not 
long be unknown to a determined mind — banishes all the 
seeming impossibilities that at first surround the enterprise, 
and gives to pecuniary advantage the very subordinate 
character to which alone they are entitled. In reading 
the lives of eminent men who in early life encountered 
poverty, we wish to know the secret by which they over- 
came : — not what the force of the tide of their success 
was equal to, but what gave impetus to that tide. And if 



Hindrances. 137 

Ihis be overlooked, nine-tenths of the value of biography 
is lost. We may therefore well enquire how the self- 
oducatcd accomplished their task. Was it by borrowing 
books or money ? or by the gratuity of some friend ? or 
were the obstacles to human enterprise for once removed 
— in short, did they find a royal road to knowledge ? No, 
by no means. They looked necessity in the face and bid 
defiance. They threw themselves upon the unearthly 
resources of genius — upon the majesty of the human 
mind, and, destitute of facilities for learning, as David 
was of weapons of war when he engaged Goliah, they 
nchieved a triumph over every difficulty. The whole 
secret seems to lie in making small assistance efficient fur 
high ends — in reducing the adventitious aids of the intel- 
lectual powers, not only without prejudice to the final 
result, but with positive advantage. This is indeed, not so 
much to dispense with help ae to find it where it is seldom 
sought ; not so much to do with less assistance, as to 
obtain more from more congenial sources. Great occasions 
make great men ; and great pursuits lead to commensurate 
attainments. The history of individual greatness proves 
that men distinguished for great and noble deeds havp 
generally laid their plans and adopted their governing 
purpose at the very commencement of their course of 
education. A case in point is that of Pollock, whose hm^ 
will be more lasting 

" Than Scotia's northern battlement of hills." 

His biographer says that he was fourteen years in prepar- 
ing the Course of Time, and as he died at twenty-eight, 
he must have formed the design and entered upon th« 
execution of that work at the age of fourteen. Dr. Adam 
Clarke was forty years in preparing his commentary, and 
as he finished it at sixty-three, be must have commenced 



lo8 SELF EDUCATION. 

at twenty-three — long before he attained any distinction 
as a scholar, and shortly after his rejection by the saga- 
cious master of Kingswood school. Lord Bacon furnishes 
an other instance still more remarkable. At the early 
age of thirteen he was entered at Cambridge, but " after 
two years residence he quitted the university with the 
conviction not only that these seminaries of learning were 
stagnant, but that they were opposed to the advancement 
of knowledge."* Thus between the thirteenth and 
fifteenth years of his age he discovered the futility of the 
then existing systems of science and planned his own 
immortal work — ^the Novum Organum — upon which he 
labored during the greater part of his life, and ultimately 
published when he was Chancellor, f 

Where the aim is sufficiently high, the practical effort 
which must foDow always draws after it suitable qualifica- 
tions. The occasion imparts the means ; the work itself 
supplies the requisite ability. Hence it is not by the 
acquisition of money in some unusual manner that poverty 
is to be overcome. Eminence is prior to patronage. — 
Wealth and conveniences are not requisite to eminence ; 
they are but effects which occasionally follow when thij 
productions of genius have assumed a marketable value. 
The great whom we admire, first became great and subse- 
,-5equently rich ; they first became learned and afterwards 
acquired what are commonly considered the means of 
learning. 

3. It would not be easy to estimate too highly tiio 
importance of literature, but nothing can be more injurious 
than the supposition that science is only to be attained by 
a profound acquaintance with language. The art of 
writing is no more essential to knowledge than the art of 

* Montague's Life of Bacon, chap. 1, 
+ Ibid. 



HINDRANCES. 139 

painting, or than any naechauic art ■whatever. And to 
suppose that a deficiency of this kind must operate as a 
barriei" to improvement, is to imagine a difficulty where 
none exists. For the conveyance and retention of knowl- 
edge, language is indispensable, but not for its acquirement. 
Letters and sounds are not an attribute of truth, they are 
only an arrangement by which the commerce of truth is 
facilitated. Men no way remai-kable for literature have 
possessed more real science than the age in w^hich they 
lived. This was apparent in Martin Luther whose single 
mind embraced more knowledge of divinity than the world 
besides; in Galileo who was obliged to abjure his astro- 
nomical tenets to escape the LKjuisition ; and in Copernicus 
whose cosmogony, through fear, was given to the world 
only with his expiring breath. Literature is an emanation 
of science; it is essentially an effect rather than a cause 
of knowledge. We would be far from saying these things 
to those who are obliged to educate themselves, in order 
to lessen their esteem for literary acquisitions. Such as 
are competent to judge, can not fail to appreciate advan- 
tages of this kind ; but our object is to remind those who 
can not obtain them, that it is in their power to supersede 
their necessity, by taking at once higher ground. Their 
passage into the temple of science may indeed be forced ; 
but better so than not at all. Let them lay hold upon 
knowledge ; literature must fulluw, if it can not precede. 
4. An impression that learning can only be successfully 
prosecuted by the aid of teachers, has contributed to dis- 
courage the enterprise of self-education. That teachers 
are useful is not to be disputed ; that they are necessary 
can never be shown. Although wo admit the utility of 
such assistance, yet it must not be regarded as a principal 
advantage even of the schools. There are four advantages 
ari^sing from school: 1. The student is separated from 



110 SELF EDUCATION. 

other employments. 2. He is made to apply himself.—* 
3. He is confined to elementary studies. 4. The aid of 
a living teacher is occasionally supplied. The last is of 
course the least essential. But even allowing that a 
teacher is necessary, the case is not materially altered ; for 
the solitary student finds a teacher in his text-book, or 
assumes the office himself. Where books are not avail- 
able to guide him, he becomes his own guide ; and surely 
the office of direction could not, in merely human hands, 
be more judiciously invested. Alexander and Bonaparte, 
knew quite as much of war as any who could have been 
found to instruct them. What military school, or what 
veteran officer had equal knowledge ? The same is true 
of Aristotle and Bacon. They had no teachers because 
none could teach them ; or, rather„ they taught themselves 
because others were ignorant of what they wished to 
know. Such minds are at least as competent to guide 
themselves as others can be to guide them ; and if teach- 
ers are not necessary — not possible — in the high sphere in 
which they moved, let no one consider them indispensable 
to subordinate pursuits. 

5. By many, a certain amount of conveniences is looked 
upon as a necessary condition of scholarship. Not to 
have the usual number of books, teachers, instruments, 
and so forth, is deemed a misfortune to which resistance is 
useless. This imaginary evil so paralyzes their strength 
that with the warmest desires for learning, they are not 
able to make a single vigorous effort. For the encourage- 
ment of such, let it be observed that mechanical facilities 
add nothing to genius. Men wrote as well before libraries 
-and schools were established, as they have done since ; we 
have not exceeded the ancients, although their literary 
advantages, according to the popular estimation, were 
immeasurably less than ours. The mind is not dependent 



HINDRANCES. 141 

for its acquisitions upon complicated and costly agencies ; 
it arrives at the greatest improvements by the most simple 
means. Dr. Franklin, one of the most successful experi- 
mental philosophers, may be taken as an example. " His 
discoveries were made with hardly any apparatus at all ; 
and if, at any time, he had been led to employ instruments 
of a somewhat less ordinary description, he never seemed 
satisfied until he had, as it were, afterward translated the 
process, by resolving the problem with such simple machin- 
fery that you might say he had done it wholly unaided by 
apparatus. The experiments by which the identity of 
lightning and electricity was demonstrated, were made 
with a sheet of brown paper, a bit of twine, a silk thread, 
and an iron key."* This simplicity of means implies no 
defect in the execution ; the experiments of Franklin 
were as perfect as any that ever were made, notwithstand- 
ing the paucity and meanness of his instruments. The 
advance of science under such circumstances reminds us 
of the astonishing skill of Asiatic manufacturers. The 
finest fabrics of the East are woven in rude huts and with 
hand-looms of the coarsest construction. Silks, so fine and 
delicate as to have no equal in European manufactures, 
are wrought with this imperfect machinery, — if that may 
be called machinery, which exhibits so little of art, or if 
that may be considered imperfect which, in its effects, has 
never been equalled.! Facts like these evince a capacity 

* Lord Brougham ; Statesmen in the time of George III. 

t " Notwithstanding the apparent slmphcity of their looms, they 
will imitate exactly the newest and most delicate pattern from 
England or France. Tlie Chinese particularly excel in the pro- 
duction of damask and flowered satins. Their crape has never 
yet been perfectly imitated : and they make a species of woshing 
silk, called at Canton ponge^ which becomes more soft as it ig 
longer used." The Chinese, &c. By John Francis Davis, Esq . 
F.R.S., vol. 2,p. 237. 



U-2 



SELF EDUCATION. 



tliat circumstances have no power to control, and the youth 
who hesitates to engage in literary and scientific pursuits 
merel}' because certain incidental helps are not at his 
command is as justly chargeable with his subsequent 
ignorance and degradation, as if he had been surrounded 
by every possible advantage. Education demands nothing 
but mind, and such an application as is practicable to all 
classes of society. 

6. G-enius is often totally misunderstood, and the conse- 
quence is that a certain peculiarity of mind, — necessary 
only to eminence of a particular kind, — comes to be re- 
garded as essential to all intellectual efforts. If, as we 
have shown in an other place, all minds have sufficient 
strength to learn the highest truths, then the absence of 
what is called genius can be counterbalanced by industry. 
The want of greater aptitude may retard improvement, 
but can not render it uncertain. Moreover the mind 
derives its ability, in part at least, from causes within its 
own control. Objects of a high character, — pursuits 
lyicg beyond the common range of enterprise, — always 
imbue the individual with their own greatness. And 
those who may think that nature has denied them the 
requisite qualifications for learning, have only to attempt 
the work, to be convinced that the defect is in the lowness 
n{ their own ambition, and not in the constitution of their 
faculties. 

7. Needless fears are entertained of the difficulty of the 
work; the formality and stateliness of scholastic lessons 
lead many to suppose that learning at school, and learning 
elsewhere, are things very different. They have no idea 
that what they already know bears any resemblance to 
the knowledge peculiar to such institutions. "A mother 
tells her infant," says Dr. Johnson, " that two and two 
make four, the child remembers the proposition, and is 



HINDRANCES, 1-13 

able to count four for all the purposes of life, till tlie course 
of his education brings him among philosophers, who 
fright him from his former knowledge by telling him that 
four is a certain aggregate of units," Most of the knowl- 
edge reserved for raaturer years will be found equally 
practicable, if not precisely identical with the lessons of 
the nursery. Youth have only to employ the same facul- 
ties that have enabled them to learn what they now know, 
in order to learn all that remains to be known. There i? 
much less mystery and difficulty in science than superficial 
observers are inclined to believe, or than interested empir- 
ics are willing to confess. " The very depth of human 
knowledge, and the very height and perfection of art, are, 
in truth, nothing more than the revealing and applying of 
a few of the laws and principles of nature ; and though 
vre oftcn'flatter ourselves that there is something profound 
in what we know, and mighty in what we do, it is still in 
nature ; and what we call inventions, even clever one!=. 
are only the applications of discoveries ; and of discover- 
ies which lie as much in the way of one man as an other, 
if both are equally dilligent in search of them."* Every 
truth in science and every attainment in literature is as 
much within the reach of common minds as any thing tliat 
they have previously learned. Facts are level to all who 
will take pains to observe the evidence on which they rest, 
and literary acquisitions are not less available to all than 
other practical attainments. 

8. All have admitted the inestimable value of truf- 
science to its possessor, and it is only in moments of pecu- 
liar stupidity that we ever indulge the thought of remain- 
ing ignorant. But it is one thing to know that education 
is important, and an other to know in what it consists. — 

* Mudie : Pop Guide, p. 64 



l-ii SUtP EDUCATfO!?. 

Things seen at a distance often ajffect us more than thosd 
near at hand ; we are too much ashamed of illiteracy to 
perceive its true character, and our ignorance appears sV 
horrid that we flee from it as ffom a spectre. Let thia 
false delicacy give place to a more philosophic feeling, 
assured not only that every deserving trait will flourish 
the better for intelligent observation, but that the inquisi- 
tions of science are always and essentially beneficent. 
Among the terms which we use none has been more fre- 
quently perverted than learning, or education.* Some 
men who have felt at feast all their consequence in the 

* " It would be well for society if this word learning could bs 
forgotten, or if we could make it the representative of other and 
very different ideas. But the delusion is continually propegated- 
The higher ranks of society give the tone to the notions of the 
rest ; and the higher classes are educated at Westminster and 
Eton, and Cambridge and Oxford. At all these the languages 
which have ceased to be the languages of a living people,. — the 
authors which communicate, relatively, little knowledge that is 
adapted to the present affairs of man, — are made the first and 
foremost articles of education. To be famihar with these is sti]5 
to be a learned man." Dymond's Essays on tlie principles af 
Morality, p. 191. 

The error of which complaint is here made, arises from that 
reluctance to change which is so characteristic of literary institu. 
lions. When these schools were founded, Latin was the language 
of scholars and Greek the depository of science. But such a state 
of things no longer exists. Scholars are not now afraid, like Ba, 
con, that "these modem languages will, at one time or other, play 
the bankrupt with books," (Works, \'ol. 3, p. 151,) and they have 
ceased to write in Latin. The science of the Greeks has been so 
far exceeded by the moderns that there is not, on this account, the 
least occasion to cultivate their language. This change of circum" 
stances has diminished the importance which, a few centuries 
ago, justly attached to tliese ancient languages. For all the 
purposes of science, Greek is now as useless as Sanscrit; and as 
a medium of public intercourse Latin is not available because it ig 
not known, and it is not known because it is not wanted, 



HINDRANCES, 1 15 

republic of letters, call those unlearned who make no 
pretensiona to Latin and Greek, and who have never stud- 
ied at a classical institution. Now we might as well 
assert that no man is a mechanic who has not served an 
apprenticeship at watch-making, or who did not learn his 
trade in London. Greek and Latin contain but few of the 
wonders of the universe, and colleges and high schools are 
but a small part of the world. The great value of these 
ancient languages may safely be admitted, without in any 
degree justifying their exclusive claims. Education implies 
nothing but knowledge gained by mental exercise, and an 
intelligent mind will very readily perceive that the kind of 
study, can only vary the value without changing the 
nature of the acquisition. None need, therefore, refrain 
from study on the supposition that education results from 
certain branches of knowledge, or from particular places 
of instruction, and from them only ; it is an acquirement 
common to everyplace and to every truth. A man can not 
be a linguist unless he has studied language to some extent, 
and so of every other branch of knowledge. But it does 
not follow that one is not a proficient in any science be- 
cause he has not an acquaintance with some that are 
understood by others. The same man is rarely eminent 
in more than one science, and there is not the strict neces- 
sity for a partial knowledge of others which some have 
supposed. The names of Brindley and Ferguson are 
proofs to what extent engineering and astronomy may be 
carried without a knowledge of mathematics ; and we 
might select similar examples from other pursuits all tend- 
ing to show that the mind as well as the body can dispense 
with ordinary facilities if it choose. Hence the absurdity 
of restricting the word learning to one or a few depart- 
ments of knowledge while the universe is full of wonders, 
neither less instructive nor more difficult of access, 



116 SELF EDUCATlOlif. 

9. The extent of education has been as little known as 
its nature. And a conviction of its unmanageable great- 
ness has been a fruitful source of discouragement to the 
inexperienced. The term education, does not present a 
subject with any naturally defined proportions, its import 
being fixed by conventional nsage. What we now call by 
that ennobling name was once either unknown or disregard- 
ed. "War and devotion supplied the themes for the poet 
and the sage, while memory lent her aid in transmitting 
their productions to future generations. The natural sci- 
ences were not then unfolded ; there were no classical 
authors and no dead languages ; each spoke as his spirit 
moved him. Yet in those unfriendly days there were 
learned men as well as now — men whose superiors never 
lived. This proves only that learning is not confined to 
one set of ideas; to one nor yet to many languages; nor to 
the modes of instruction which are most approved. Before 
the revival of letters in England, he who could merely read 
^'as such a prodigy that civil immunities were conferred 
upon him ; hence, that strange statute, " the Benefit of 
Clergy," which is no other than a release from punishment 
after conviction, in consideration of literary merit. But 
now it is attempted to withhold the very name of scholar 
from all who have notr— besides other important acquisitions 
— conned the obsolete dialects of G-reece and Rome. Thus 
it appears that in one age those limited acquirements to be 
had at a common school are deemed wonderful, while in 
another age, one must travel through the v/hole encyclope- 
dia and master all the forgotten languages of the earth to 
be considered a scholar. Extremes destroy es-ch other. 
The capricious use of a word shows that it either has no 
settled meaning, or is unjustly applied. According to pres- 
ent usage, the ancients must all be set down as unlearned, 
for they were ignorant of much that is embraced in a mod- 



HINDRANCES. 117 

em education, antl those of the jirescnt day who arrogate 
to themselves this distinction — who claim exclusively to be 
the educated — will probably have to yield it in favor of a 
subsequent generation. Some fortunate revolution in science 
may give posterity to look down from an eminence upon the 
present imperfect state of knowledge. Then the literati 
of our day — if their memories and works shall find their 
way thus far into the distant and uncertain future — will be 
as eligible to the distinguishing epithets, illiterate and 
uneducated, as Shakspearc and Bunyan now are. Such 
absurdities sufficiently attest the indefinite views which 
have prevailed in reference to education. The subject 
itself not being settled, the terms used to designate it are 
necessarily vague. We arrive, however, at this conclusion : 
that education means the same as mental improvement ; 
that the ancients were as well educated as the moderns, and 
as well as their successors will be, for the very good reason 
that both ancients and moderns had valuable knowledge — 
and valuable knowledge is all that the human mind can 
ever have ; that learning depends not upon the number or 
kind of studies, nor yet upon the time or place of studying, 
but simply and exclusively upon an industrious application 
of the intellectual faculties ; that there is no standard of 
attainments nor can be anj-, because neither the capacity 
of the mind nor the extent of science has been, or can be 
ascertained — and because knowledge is constantly varying 
must necessarily exclude all but those to whom it was at 
with every generation, so that if a standard were fixed, it 
first applied ; that education being neither more nor less 
than the acquisition of useful knowledge, can never become 
so extensive as to be impracticable to any diligent mind. 

10. An other hindrance exists in the too prevalent 
opinion that nothing but strictly literary and scientific 
pursuits have any tendency to inform the understanding. 



118 SELF EDUCATION. 

A vast amount of real science lies concealed in all the 
active employments of life. Men who have been suffi- 
ciently active and observing, although ignorant of booka 
and letters, have not unfrequently, in spite of this disad- 
vantage, attained to the highest eminence of knowledge. 
" Charlemagne was as illustrious in the cabinet as in the 
field ; and, though he could not write his own name, was 
the patron of men of letters, the restorer of learning, and 
a wise legislator."* But the most ordinary avocations are 
not divested of this instructive influence ; even suffering, 
as well as toU, has the same effect. This view of the 
subject is very happily expressed by Dr. Channing. " I 
have faith in labor, and I see the goodness of God in 
placing us in a world where labor alone can keep us alive. 
I would not change, if I could, our subjection to physical 
laws, our exposure to hunger and cold, and the necessity 
of constant conflict with the world. I would not, if I 
could, so temper the elements, that they should infuse into 
us only grateful sensations, that they should make vegeta- 
tion so exuberant as to anticipate every want ; and the 
minerals so ductile as to offer no resistance to our strength 
and skill. Such a world would make a contemptible race,. 
Man owes his growth, his energy, chiefly to the striving of 
the will, that conflict with difficulty which we call effect. 
Easy, pleasant work docs not give men a consciousness of 
their powers, does not train them to endurance, to perse- 
verance, to steady force of will; that force without which 
all other acquisitions avail nothing. Manual labor is a 
school in which men are placed to get energy of purpose 
and character, a vastly more important endowment than all 
the learning of all the schools. They are placed, indeed, 
under hard masters, physical sufferings and wants, the 
power of fearful elements, and the vicissitudes of ail 

* Universal Biographical Dictionary. 



HINDRANCES. liO 

human things ; but these stern teachers do a work whick 
no compassionate, indulgent friend could do for us, and 
true -wisdom will bless Providence for their sharp ministr3\ 
I have great faith in hard work. The material world does 
much for the mind by its beauty and order ; but it does 
much more for our minds by the pains it inflicts, by its 
obstinate resistance which nothing but patient toil can 
overcome ; by its vast forces which nothing but unremit- 
ted skill and eifort can turn to our use ; by its perils which 
demand continual vigilance, and by its tendencies to decay 
I believe that difficulties are more important to the human 
mind than what we call assistances. Work, we all must, if 
we mean to bring out and perfect human nature." 

11. But still more erroneously, manual labor is often 
thought to be incompatible with literary pursuits. Yet, so 
far is this from being the case, that it is highly probable 
Buch labor — independent of the knowledge which it sup- 
plies — is a help, rather than a hindrance, to literary 
acquirements. It is almost the only condition on which 
we can have "a sound mind in a sound body;" and 
though it leaves less time for scientific studies than is 
usually deemed necessary for their successful prosecution, 
facts compel us to acknowledge that it leaves enough. 
Some have supposed that labor blunts the faculties and 
deprives the mind of much of its acuteness. There is no 
evidence however that such an efi^ect is ever produced ; but 
there is much evidence to the contrary. Active habits 
induced by physical toil are as properly habits of the 
mind, as those which arise from speculation; and these 
habits once formed, are easily applicable to purely intellect- 
ual employmenta. It is not because other pursuits are 
injurious to literature that most who are devoted to them 
fail of education ; the reason is, that such pursuits become 
exclusive — they are suffered to engross all the time and 



150 SELF EDUCxiTION. 

all the effort to the total neglect of literary studies. 
People are under no necessity of yielding to business in 
this manner ; and it can only be through ignorance of all 
just rules of management, or a predominant desire of 
wealth, to which every thing else is sacrificed, that they 
thus allow themselves to be absorbed in such affairs. 
Labor neither unfits us for study, nor monopolizes the 
means that should facilitate it. And the laboring man 
may congratulate himself upon the possession of some 
advantages which never, in so high a degree, fall to the lot 
of others. His abundant exercise — his general and 
rational muscular exertion, enables the mind to reach its 
utmost capacity and gives it the power of prolonged endu- 
rance at this extreme point of effort. We therefore 
conclude that a life of labor precludes no one, unless 
through his own unconstrained choice, from the highest 
attainments in literature and science. 

12. Some have failed solely from a want of persever- 
ance. This may have beea occasioned, it is true, by the 
ill success of an injudicious method, but it more commonly 
proceeds from fickleness of character. An object may be 
pursued forever by wrong means without being obtained ; 
yet there are few who so absolutely mistake their v/ay. — 
The most prefer to abandon the enterprise after prosecu- 
ting it awhile ; they are impatient and can not wait to finish 
what they have begun ; progress is too slow and the possi- 
bility of final success too uncertain to stimulate exertion. 
How utterly at variance with all practical philosophy such a 
vacilating course must be, is obvious to the most superficial 
observer. Not only self-education, but every thing else, is 
equally beyond the sphere of these inconstant efforts. 
Knowledge can be had only as other things are had — that 
is, by unremitted and self-sacrificing endeavors. On the 
general subject now under consideration, I shall do the 



UINDRANCES. .151 

reader a favor by introducing the following remarks from a 
a writer to wliom I have before referred. " Many, when 
circumstances have turned their attention to self-iinprove- 
ment, and while the glowing picture is before them, often 
make excellent and sometimes prodigious resolutions. But 
because they do not at once, as by a leap, become j^orfoct, 
they are soon ready to give up the effort in despair. For 
such, for all, it were well to remember, that self-education 
is a matter of slow progress, of patient and persevering 
effort, and that in little things, from day to day and from 
hour to hour. It is the fixed law of the universe, that little 
things are ever the elements — the parts of the great. The 
grass does not spring up full grown. It rises by an increase 
so noiseless and gentle, as not to disturb an angel's ear, 
and not to be seen by an angel's eye. The rain does not 
fall in masses, but in drops, or even in the brcath-hke 
moisture of the fine m.ist, as if the world were one vast 
condenser, and God had breathed upon it. The planets do 
not leap from end to end of their orbits ; but in their ever 
onward progress, inch by inch, and line by line it is that they 
circle the heavens. And so with self- improvement. It is not 
a thing of fits and impulses, and explosions, but of constant 
watchfulness, and patient and unwearied effort, and of 
gradual and ceaseless advancement. Like the wealth of the 
miser, it must be heaped up piece by piece ; and then, at 
length, like the wealth of tlie miser it may almost be with- 
out Umit. Like the coral reefs of the ocean it must grow 
by small but constant additions ; and then it will finally be 
like those reefs, admirable in all its parts, and rivalling the 
very mountains in size."* 

Perseverance is necessary to respect. And if efforts at 
self- education prove unsuccessful, it is because they are 
contemptible. Weak and hesitating, precarious and incon- 

» Rev. Tryon Edwards: Biblical Repository, Jan., 1841. 



152 BBL^ EDUCATltiN. 

Btant, without judgment and without determination, tc 
what but reproach are they entitled ? Such persons, 
however, can hardly be said to fail in their attempts, as the 
failure Hes rather in their not attempting the work at all. 
Their works are only a burlesque upon industry. 

13. The absence of voluntary engagements is an obsta- 
cle to the success of this enterprise. One of the principal 
advantages of a school is the obligation which it imposes 
upon the learner to acquire a certain amount of knowledge 
in a given time. This obligation the student assumes 
when he enters such an institution, and so long as he 
subjects himself to an arrangement of this kind, there is 
no chance for negligence ; others have the supervision of 
him, and are paid for guarding him against irregularity. — 
But self- education denies us this precaution. It places the 
student under no special oversight, it exacts of him the 
performance of no particular task. It leaves him to 
engage in literature as he is afterward to engage in other 
enterprises — guided by his own judgment and determined 
by his own will. Yet it must not be forgotten that in 
exempting us from the authority and direction of others, it 
does by no means exempt us from the authority and direc- 
tion of ourselves. The self-educated man is entrusted by 
l^rovidence with the control of himself and if his conduct 
is not characterized by just and enlightened discipline, it 
proves him either incompetent or reckless. He may have 
as good direction as others ; rules and regulations are not 
impossible to him, but they must emanate from himself. It 
is desirable, therefore, that youth should early become 
acquainted with this peculiarity, that they may assume, if 
necessary, a responsibility, which society has made no 
arrangemnts to transfer to others. Even a child, if it 
knows that it is left unprovided for, will see the necessity 
of making some choice ; and almost any choice would be 



HINDRANCES. 153 

preferable to allowing their juvenile years to pass away 
without an intelligent purpose. Self-education, although 
destitute of those compulsory measures furnished by the 
schools, is only on a level with all the undertakings of 
adult hfe. And persons who have passed the period of 
minority have no more need of such coercive aids to 
ensure attention to literature or science, than they have to 
ensure attention to commerce or agriculture. Oceasionally 
they may find the pressure of voluntary engagements of 
service in quickening the mind to renewed exertion ; buf 
its ordinary and principal support must consist of a spirit 
of literary enterprise — a love of study that chooses to 
work even where there is no compulsion and in spite of 
every difficulty. This incidental assistance is thus allud- 
ed to in a passage of Sir Walter Scott's diary, " Feb. 15, 
(1826.) Yesterday I did not write a line of Woodstock. 
Partly, I was a little out of spirits, though that would 
not have hindered. Partly, I wanted to wait for some new 
ideas — a sort of collecting of straw to make bricks ot. 
Partly, I was a little too far beyond the press. I can not 
pull well in long traces, when the draught is too far 
behind me. I love to have the press thumping, clattering, 
and banging in my rear; it creates the necessity which 
always makes me work best."* However grateful to Sir 
Walter's ambition, such a constraint may have liccn, no 
one can suppose that it produced his devotion to litcratui'e. 
Other motives would have kept his pen employed had this 
been wanting ; but he was too much engaged in his work 
not to be thankful for every circumstance which seemed u> 
enforce its accomplishment. In the instance now given, 
the obligation was merely a consequence of. previous 
activity — a veteran writer had created demands upon hi? 
genius which he could not conveniently disregard. Ant.l 

* Lockhart's Life of Scott, vol. 6, p. 176. 
J 



151 SELF EDUCATION. 

as this is tlie natural order in which such obligations 
arise to all but minors, the self-taught student will find 
them evolving in sufficient abundance from his own ener- 
gies. Study draws after it obligations to study, and he 
that learns most is most committed to learning. 

14. An erroneous impression prevails in reference to 
the art of writing. It is thought that writing must be a 
very difficult and complicated process, and therefore not 
attainable without the aid of scholastic facilities. Many 
who would cheerfully attempt it upon the supposition that 
it was not more difficult than other mechanic arts, are 
now deterred by a dread of its impossibility. People who 
suffer such views to influence them, must be ignorant of 
the history of literature. The most renowned writers 
have rarely done more than simply trace upon paper the 
imagery of their own minds. In doing this they followed 
no rule, no art, no system. They merely took such words 
as they were accustomed to speak, and such as most 
exactly expressed their thoughts, and placed them upon 
paper just as their thoughts occurred. Their writing was 
only an indication of certain conceptions of the mind ; 
and whatever difficulty may have attached to the process, 
it arose not from a want of skill in adapting words to 
ideas, but in adapting ideas to things. It was in thinking, 
not in the transference of thought to legible signs, that 
the greatness of their minds became evident. Our 
thoughts invest themselves in words, and in right words, 
spontaneously when the mind is properly inspired. If 
style is defective, it is because the thought is defective ; 
for words are nothing, and can mean nothing, but as 
thought gives them existence and gives them meaning. 
Eut notwithstanding thought is the soul and substance of 
writing, eminent authors freq^uently write without premed- 
itation, and some of their happiest productions have 



ttlNDRANCES, 155 

originated in this manner. Another extract from the 
tliary of the author la&t quoted wjU furnish us an illustra- 
tion here. 

" Feb. 12, (1820.) Having ended the second volume 
of Woodstock last night, I have to begin the third this 
morning. Now I have not the shghtest idea how the 
story is to be wound up to a catastrophe. I am just in 
the same case as I used to be when I lost myself in form- 
er days in some country to which I was a stranger. I 
always pushed for the pleasantest route, and either found 
VI' made it the nearest. It is the same in writing. I 
never could lay down a plan — or, having laid it down, I 
never could adhere to it ; the action of composition always 
extended some passages, and abridged or omitted others ; 
and persons were rendered important or insignificant, not 
;u3Cording to their agency in the original conception of 
the piece, but according to the success, or otherwise, with 
which I was able to bring them out. I only tried to 
make that which I was actually writing diverting and 
interesting, leaving the rest to fate. I have been often 
amused with the critics distinguishing some passages as 
particularly labored, when the pen passed over the whole 
as fast as it could move, and the eye never again saw 
them except in proof."* Nor is this method of writing 
confined to works of imagination. The numbers of the 
Rambler — a work which for elegance of diction and pro- 
foundness of thought, is not surpassed by any thing iii 
the English language — were composed in the same manner, 
•'Posterity," says Mr. Boswell, "will be astonished, when 
they are told, upon the authority of Johnson himself!, 
that many of these discourses, which we should suppose 
had been labored with all the slow attention of literary 
leisure, were written in haste as the moment pressed, 

* Lockhart's Life of Scott, vol. 6, p. 172. 



156 SELP EDUCATION. 

without even being read over by him before they were 
printed."* "He told us," continues the author, "almost 
all his Ramblers were written just as they were wanted 
for the press ; that he sent a certain portion of the copy 
of an essay, and wrote the remainder, while the former 
part of it was printing. When it was wanted, and he had 
fairly sat down to it he was sure it would be done."t 
Sasselas, another of Johnson's most j&nished works, was 
written with equal rapidity. " He told Sii' Joshua Key- 
nolds, that he composed it in the evenings of one week, sent 
it to the press as it was written, and had never since read 
it over."J Its critical merits as a literary work are thus 
characterized by Sir John Hawking, " Rasselas is a speci- 
men of our language scarcely to be paralleled; it is 
written in a style refined to a degree of immaculate 
purity."§ 

Examples of this kind prove that the mind can perform 
its highest tasks with very little of what is commonl}- 
thought to be a necessary preparation. Grammar, Rhet- 
oi'ic, and Logic are all evolved in every correct thought. 
They are all inherent in truth, are attendants of it, and 
breathed forth with the utterance of every just conception. 
Intense and correct thinking, therefore, carries with it the 
esssentials of good writing, and the only real hindrance to 
authorship is the want of such ideas as deserve to be 
recorded. 

15. The idea that a great amount of knowledge is a 
necessary prerequisite to scientific pursuits, or to the 
efiicient exercise of the mind, retards improvement by 
impairing the confidence which every man should have in 

* Boswell's Life of Johnson, vol. 1, p. 139. 

t Ibid. vol. 3. 

t Ibid, vol. 1, p. 246. 

§ Quoted by Arthur Murphy in his Life of Johnson, p. 206. 



HINDRANCES. 157 

his own powers of observation. It is only on subjects to 
wliicb knowledge relates that it affords us any assistance ; 
the study of mathematics enables us to judge better of 
mathematical truths, but not of other truths. On sub- 
jects of which all arc equally ignorant, all are equally 
competent judges. But every mind is endowed with a 
capacity of thinking, and the elements of truth arc con- 
stantly present to every mind ; so that nothing but 
application is necessary to place all on a level in actual 
attainments. " The rudest peasant may be said to have 
in his mind, all, or nearly all, those primary notions, of 
which the sublimest demonstrations of the relations of 
number and quantity are the mere development. He 
would be astonished, indeed, if he could be made to 
understand, that on notions, which appear to him of .so 
very trifling import, have been founded some of the 
proudest monuments of the intellectual achievements ot 
man, and that, among the names, to which his' country 
and the world look with highest veneration, are the names 
of those whose life has been occupied in little more than 
in tracing all the forms of which those few conceptions^ 
which exist in Ms mind as much as in theirs, are suscep- 
tible."* To trace out these various relations, is the 
appropriate business of the mind. For this purpose, the 
fundamental idea was given by nature, and all who are 
thus favored with the first original conception have the 
whole immensity of truth at their command. As he wh(< 
takes one step has only to repeat the eftort, in the right 
direction, to accomphsh the longest journey, so he who 
learns one truth, has only to repeat the intellectua/ efibrt 
to acquix'c, every possible science. The work is that of 
discovering single, not aggregated truths ; and the diffi^ 

* Brown : Philos., vol. 1. p. 490. Lcct. 48. 



158 SELF EDTTCATION, 

culties wMcli embarrass us when science is viewed as a 
whole, vanish altogether When it is surveyed by items. 
Eeason is a jDOwer that operates upon the facts which arc 
before it, and which requires no previous stock of knowl- 
edge to make its operations perfect. It is an endowment 
that performs its functions with only the knowledge derived 
from its own experience, and even where this knowledge 
is wanting it is still competent to act. Language, so 
often regarded as essential to its exercise, is a very con- 
tingent advantage — a mere incident to ratiocination,— as 
may be seen in the success which always attends the first 
use of this faculty. " The infant, long before he can be 
supposed to have acquired any knowledge of terms, forms 
his little reasonings on the subjects, on which it is import- 
ant for him to reason, as accurately probably as after- 
wards; but, at least, with all the accuracy which is 
necessary for preserving his existence, and gratifying his 
few feeble desires. He has, indeed, even then, gone 
through proeesseSj which are admitted to involve the 
finest reasoning, by those very philosophers who deny him 
to be capable of reasoning at all. He has already calcu- 
lated distances, long before he knew the use of a single 
word expressive of distance, and accommodated his induc- 
tion to those general laws of matter, of which he knows 
nothing but the simple facts, and his expectation, that 
what has afi'orded him either pain or pleasure, will continue 
to afibrd pain or pleasure. What language does the 
infant require to prevent him from putting his finger 
twice in the flame of that candle which has burned him 
once ? or to persuade him to stretch his hand in exact 
conformity with the laws of optics, to that very point at 
which some bright trinket is glittering on his delighted 
eyes ? To suppose that we can not reason without lan- 
guage, seems to me, indeed, almost to involve the same 



HINDRANCES. 159 

inconsistency, as to say, that man is incapable of moving 
his limbs, till he have previously walked a mile."* There 
can be no good reason, then, why the most illiterate and 
unlearned person should not commence a course of observ- 
ation with the hope of distinguished usefulness. Such an 
individual has all the faculties and all the knowledge 
necessary to the discovery of truth. As for those 
mechanical facilities which the learned possess, and which 
in certain departments of science give them such decided 
superiority, they are mere emanations of mind — mere 
cifects flowing from causes already under the control of 
the most ignorant. 

16. Besides the imaginary diflSculties now mentioned 
there is another which arises from the mistaken notion 
that improvement is no longer possible ; that the career of 
invention and discovery is closed, and that nothing new 
remains to the ambition of the student. 

The effect of such a sentiment on the general progress 
of science, Bacon has repeatedly noticed. " By far the 
greatest obstacle to the advancement of the sciences and 
the undertaking of any new attempt or department is to 
be found in men's despair and the idea of impossibility. 
For men of a prudent and exact turn of thought are 
.iltogethor diffident in matters of this nature, considering 
the obscurity of nature, and the shortness of life, the 
deception of the senses, and weakness of the judgment. 
They think, therefore, that in the revolution of ages and 
of the world there are certain floods and ebbs of the 
sciences, and that they grow and flourish at one time, and 
wither and fall at another, that when they have attained a 
certain degree and condition they can proceed no further."! 

* Brown: Pliilos., vol. 1, p. 482. 

t Nov. Org., B. 1., Aph. 92. A modern author of great acute- 
ncss is inclined to favor the opinion which Bacon here censures. 



160 SELF EDUCATION. 

Self- education is from the first, an enterprise of discovery. 
Its hopes and incitements must therefore be such as influ- 
ence those, who, having attained the utmost goal of 
estabhshed science, are about to advance to some thing 
beyond. There must be a full conviction that all has not 
been done which can be done. For if the solitary student 
is to be confined to stereotyped lessons under an impres- 
sion that others have so much the advantage of him as to 
exclude competition on the field of discovery ; or, in other 
words, if he imagines nothing valuable can be effected by 
such means as are at his command, we may rest assured 
that his efforts will be abortive. It is not under such 
auspices .that the human mind distingu^ishes itself. Ideas 
of inferiority, and of inferior advantage require to be 
forgotten in the order of pursuit. The discoveries which 
have hitherto been made, show that the power to unlock 
the mysteries of nature and to benefit the world, is not 
exclusively confided to scholars of any particular grade or 
class. All ranks of society and all degrees of cultivation 
have participated in these achievements. And there is 
still a chance for all, and an equal chance. No student 
should deem his opportunities unfavorable, or his sphere 
too contracted to allow of eminence. However narrow 
the field of his observation, it brings him into living con- 
tact with exhaustless wonders — it gives him a panoramic 
view of the world and opens to him all the sources of 
knowledge. 

''It is at least difficult to review the fortunes of mankind, either 
on a great scale, or within particular spheres, without inclining to 
the supposition that there are natural cycles of intelligence, dis. 
turbed indeed by accidental causes ; at one time lengthened, and 
at an other shortened ; but still returning, at not very itregular 
intervals; and in obedience to which, the great community of 
nations, and nations individually, advance or recede on the course 
of knowledge and virtue." Spiritual Despotism, p. 176, 



HINDRANCES. 161 

17. Self-education is often neglected from tlie supposi- 
tion that when most successful it falls considerably below 
what can be obtained at literary institutions. The idea 
that such attainments are never quite so perfect as those 
of the schools, diminishes their value in the estimation of 
the student and leaves him without the necessary motives 
to proficiency. People do not willingly consent to what is 
even remotely degrading. Until right views of self- educa- 
tion prevail, it will continue to be pursued with languor. 
"Wliilc it is looked upon as the least of two evils — as 
oidy preferable to ignorance, and not at all equal to the 
leducation of the schools — it is folly to expect any thing 

ike a thoi'ough application. ^Ye require to be pursuaded 
of its value before making sacrifices to obtain it. But the 
idea is a fallacy. No such imperfection exists ; and there- 
fore, none should be suffered to influence the mind. The 
very sciences which our schools disseminate are the efieet 
of self- education. We have sho-wn, that no science has 
been, or can be, invented by the aid of teachers. The 
highest efforts of the mind are exclusively under its own di- 
rection. Hence so far is this method from being imperfect 
that it is the only one by which real and original greatness 
can be attained. 

18. Through a disrelish for the objects of human enter- 
prise, or from the too great influence of other and 
unfavorable pursuits, the very desire of learning is fre- 
quently intermitted. In this state of mind, mental 
indolence becomes habitual, and ambition, which prompts 
to eminence, decays as the love of quiet increases, until 
at last all taste for study is lost, and knowledge itself seems 
to be valueless.* Such have no purpose, no wish to learn ; 

* "In America most of the ricli men were formerly poor : most 
of those wift) now enjoy leisure were absorbed in business during 
their youth ; the consequence of which is, that wlien they might 



162 SELF EDUCATIOIT. 

but this is not the worst. Their irresolution and indiffer- 
ence are too apt to ripen into deliberate, unmiugled hatred 
of science. They feel the eorrodings of conscience and the 
consciousness of inferiority which always supervene upon 
the neglect of known duty. Tormented in this manner, it 
is no wonder that they should steep their minds in forget- 
fulness or vent them in reproaches against learning. A 
little reflection will dissipate these stagnant vapors of the 
brain, and recover the mind from a state no less inimical to 
improvement than would be the destruction of the intel- 
lectual faculties. 

19. An evil not altogether different from the preceding, 
is that of waiting for more favorable circumstances. That 
is an abandonment without alledged reasons ; this for rea- 
sons alledged, but insufficient. A bare postponement for 
a limited time would not of itself be fatal, but when taken 
in connection with the fact that no change for the better is 
likely to occur at any future period, delay becomes equiva- 
lent to an entire rejection of the enterprise. He who 
will not begin with such means as he has, will probably 
never begin at all. It is necessary therefore to commence 
the work at once with, or without, facilities, as the case 
may be. Books are a desideratum not always easily sup- 
plied; especially the more important and approved text 
books. But then these are not the only works that will 
answer. Almost any book of correct moral principles is a 
great acquisition. Should it be a dictionary or a treatise 
on metaphysics, it is not the less valuable ; such books are 
practical grammarians and expositors of words. In read- 
ing them the mind becomes familiar with a diction and 
definitions suited to the highest themes. Dr. Watts enu- 

have had a taste for study they had no time for it, and when the 
time is at their disposal they have no longer the inclination." — 
Democracy in America, Vol. 1. 



UINDRANCES. 163 

merates five ways of gaining knowledge; namely, reading^ 
conversation, meditation, observation, and lectures. Now 
if one, for good reasons, can not read, he still has left four 
other ways of improvement, and these, if industriously 
employed, will lead to distinction. Perhaps the latter 
modes have one advantage over reading, and that is, we 
use them with more reliance upon our own understandings. 
20. Perhaps we may ascribe the failure of some to a 
neglect of natural aptitude. They aimed to acquire what 
to them was impracticable. Men of the greatest genius 
have often been unable to learn particular sciences and 
arts. There are few universal geniuses ; perhaps none. 
Of this peculiar inability we have an instance in the case 
of James Ferguson, an eminent astronomer and mechani- 
cian, and author of several popular works on those sub- 
jects. "I remember distinctly," says Dugald Stewart, 
"to have heard him say, that he had more than once 
attempted to study the elements of Euclid ; but found 
himself quite unable to enter into that species of reason- 
ing. The second proposition of the first book, ho 
mentioned particularly as one of his stumbling-blocks at 
the very outset ; — the circuitous process by which Euclid 
sets about an operatiom which never could puzzle, for a 
single moment, tiny man who had seen a pair of compasses, 
appearing to him altogether capricious and ludicrous. He 
added, at the same time, that as there were various 
geometrical theorems of which he had daily occasion to 
make use, he had satisfied himself of their truth, either 
by means of his compasses and scale, or by some mechan- 
ical contrivances of his own invention."* Sir Walter 
Scott remarks of himself a similar defect in regard to 
perspective and music. "Even the humble ambition 
which I long cherished of making sketches of those places 

* Elcm. Philos., vol. 2, p. 140, note. 



16-1 SELF EDUCATION. 

■which interested me, from a defect of eye or of hand, was 
totally ineffectual. After long study and many eflPorts, I 
Avas unable to apply the elements of perspective or of 
shade to the scene before me, and was obliged to relin- 
quish in despair an art which I was most anxious to 
practice." "With music it was even worse than with 
painting. My mother was anxious we should at least 
learn Psalmody; but the incurable defects of my voice 
and ear soon drove my teacher to despair."* Dr. Adam 
Clarke says, " There was one branch of knowledge in 
Avhich he could never make any progress ; viz. arithme- 
tic, "t The celebrated Eiehard Baxter was also unable to 
make any proficiency in mathematics. It is not necessary 
to add that such sciences as seem thus to elude the grasp 
of our faculties should be omitted, for they can not be 
acq^uired. The important point is to follow the natural 
inclination of the mind in the selection of studies ; some 
knoY/ledge ma}^, indeed, be gained of those which are 
repugnant to our constitution, but it is only while we con- 
form to our own peculiarities that we can hope for much 
proficiency. Among distinguished writers there is a great 
diversity of talent. One excels in criticism, an other in 
argument, and an other in style. Some prefer poetry, 
others history, and others metaphj-sics. But every man 
rises to excellence in his congenial pursuit ; and in that 
alone. 

21. Johnson has observed that mental vacancy is a 
great obstacle to learning, and I think there are few who 
will not accord with his opinion. "Many impose upon 
the world, and many upon themselves by an aj)pearance of 
severe and exemplary dilligence, where they, in reality, 
give themselves up to the luxury of fancy, please their 

* Life, vol. l.pp. 39, 40. 
t Life, vol. 1, p. 19. 



UINDRAXCES. 165 

minds with rc^rulating the past, or planning out the future ; 
place themselves at will in varied situations of happiness, 
and slumber avt^ay their days in voluntary visions. In the 
journey of life some are left behind because they arc 
naturally feeble and slow : some because they miss the way. 
and many because they leave it by choice, and, instead of 
pressing onward with a steady pace, delight themselves 
with momentary deviations, turn aside to pluck every 
flower, and repose in every shade. There is nothing more 
fatal to a man whose business it is to think, than to have 
learned the art of regaling his mind with those airy 
gratifications. Other vices or follies are restrained by 
fear, reformed by admonition, or rejected by the convictioix 
which a comparison of our conduct with that of others 
may in time produce. But this invisible riot of the mind, 
this secret prodigality of being, is secure from detection 
and fearless of reproaeh. The dreamer retires to his 
apartment, shuts out the cares and interruptions of man- 
kind and abandons himself to his own fancy ; new worlds 
rise up before him, one image is followed by an other, and 
a long; succession of deliii-hts dances round him. He is at 
last called back to life by nature, or by custom, and 
enters peevish into society, because he can not model it to 
his own will. He returns from his idle excursions with 
the asperity, though not with the knowledge of a student, 
and hastens again to the same felicity with the eagerness 
of a man bent upon the advancement of some favorite 
science. The infatuation strengthens by degrees, and like 
the poison of opiates, weakens his powers, without any 
external symptom of malignity. It happens, indeed, that 
these hypocrites of learning are in time detected, and 
convinced by disgrace and disappointment of the difference 
between the labor of thought, and the sport of musing. 
But this discovery is often not made till it is too late to 



166 SELF EDUCATION. 

recover the time that has been fooled away."* The evil 
here noticed is peculiarly injurious to self-education, 
because of the absence of those constraints which, in 
literary institutions, enforce activity. Unless the mind 
awakes to the responsibilities of its condition, and fills 
up its hours with resolute, well-directed thought, instead 
of idle reveries, it will not only fail to improve in general 
science but become driveling in the elements of knowledge 
— in common sense itself. For our stock of natural knowl- 
edge, like our health, can only be preserved by exercise. 

22. Miscellaneous efforts belong to the class of hinder- 
ances now under consideration. The mind, not sufficiently 
intent upon high attainments, allows itself to rest satisfied 
with mere fragments of learning — with scraps of informa- 
tion, which though ultimately useful when blended into a 
new system by their possessor, can never by themselves be 
of much service. They are materials out of which systems 
may be wrought, and a dilligent mind will repair all 
deficiences by elaborating science from such disjunctive 
hints. But miscellaneous and fragmentary knowledge, if 
suffered to remain in this condition, is almost entirely use- 
less; because, having neither order nor connection, it can 
not be applied to practical purposes. Education demands 
science and this demand can only be met by original inven- 
tion, or by an appropriation of the labors of others. We 
may pass through forms which others have delineated and 
arrive at a knowledge of their conceptions, and in this way 
such science becomes our own ; or, if required by circum- 
stances, the same acquisitions can be made without the 
intervention of assistance. In the latter case, the mind is 
placed on a level with its predecessors, and has an oppor- 
tunity of rivaling them on the same ground. It M^as thus 
that in his own day, the genius of Newton was equalled by 

* Rambler, 89. 



HINDRANCES. 1G7 

Leibnitz, and at a later period by Rittenhouso.* Wc 
do not object to miscellaneous actjuisitions if they can be 
carried forward to completion ; they may serve as stepping 
stones to high advancement. It is the liability to rest in 
such acquisitions that renders them dangerous ; it is restinf 

in them that makes them useless makes smatterers 

instead of men of learning. 

28. We may trace much evil«to an idea that small frag- 
ments of time are of no use in literary pursuits. Where 
persons arc compelled to labor, or where business of any 
kind necessarily consumes a large proportion of time 
Dpportunities for study will, of course, be greatly reduced. 
But the busiest life affords some moments of leisure, and 
if these are faithfully devoted to learning, and with the 
impetus which labor gives to mental effoi't, there will be 
no real cause for regret that further opportunity was 
wanting. In the comparatively brief period allotted to 
such objects, the mind by dilligence traverses the whole 
circle of science,^and stands at last on as lofty an eminence 
of scholarship as a life of the most exclusive study could 
have attained. This grand result proceeds from a judi- 
cious improvement of those minute portions of time which 
by the multitude are thrown away because they are small, 
and, for no other reason. They appear not to be aware 

* "The more, indeed, we contemplate the early life of Riten. 
house, the more our admiration is excited. With such elementary 
knowledge only as could be obtained at the school or a remote 
settlement ; under the parental discipline of a father, who rather 
discouraged than aided his studies, and of an illiterate, though 
strong-minded mother; possessed of no booksbut those of an hum. 
hie mechanic ; he persevered until he had, step by step, mastered 
all the truths of mathematical science, and had arrived at the 
principles of that calculus, for the lionor of whose invention a 
Newton and a Leibnitz iiad contended." American Biography; 
conducted by Jared Sparks. Vol. 7, p. 21G. 



168 SELP EDUCATIONj 

that these particles though separated in themselves, will be 
united in their effect. Hence, the wastage of life — those 
odd minutes and leisure hours incident to all employments, 
and devoted by the student to snatches from whatever 
author may be at hand, they never improve by reading. — 
Some frivolous entertainment is called in to give relaxation to 
the mind when it already suffers — suffers for want of labor. 
The solid and comprehensive truths of science, the pleasing 
and elegant accomplishments of literature would be a far 
better cordial than public amusement or private sauntering. 
A great mistake prevails in relation to the length of time 
which an acquaintance with science must necessarily 
require. That years are spent in the study of particular 
sciences is true, and that the study of years does not 
exhaust them is equally true ; but this alters not the fact, 
that a general and sufficient knowledge of such science maj' 
be acquired in much less time. Dr. Adam Smith has 
remarked that the principles of almost any trade may be 
learned in a few weeks as well as in many years.* The 

* "Long apprenticeships are altogether unnecessary. The arts 
which are much superior to common trades, such as those of 
making clocks and watches, contain no such mystery as to require 
a long course of instruction. The first invention of such beautiful 
machines, indeed, and even that of some of the instruments em. 
ployed in making them, must, no doubt, have been the work of 
deep thought and long lime, and may justly be considered as 
among the happiest efforts of human ingenuity. But when both 
have been fairly invented and are well understood, to explain to any 
young man m the completest manner, how to apply the instru- 
ments and how to construct the machines, can not well require more 
than the lessons of a few weeks ; perhaps those of a few days migh^- 
be sufficient. In the common mechanic trades those of a few 
days might certainly be sufficient. The dexterity of hand, 
indeed, even in common trades, can not be acquired without much 
practice and experience." Wealth of Nations, B. I, ch. 10. 
Part 2. 



HINDRANCES. 169 

-ractical skill requisite to mechanics might not be perfect, 
et the general principles of the art could be communica- 
'.ed. lu science, a similar abridgement of time is practi- 
cable, without sacrificing any real advantage. A few 
weeks, or even days, of determined and intelligent study^ 
will often give an individual more knowledge of a science 
than whole years of listless, obsequious toil.* Bacon 
while yet in his novitiate saw through all the sciences of 

He accordingly assorts that tlie extended apprenticesLips ii? 
England arc the result of monopolization. And he does not 
licsitato to apply the same piiaciple to literature; he says the 
literary aristocracy, with a view to promote their own pecuniary 
'nterests hy making the business of teaching more permanent, 
iixcd upon the long period of seven years as the term of colltgi 
pupilage. 

* The following account of the manner in which Bonaparte 
became acquainted with the civil law, is related by O'Mcara, and 
affords a sufficient illustration of the remark here made. " When 
he was forming the Code Napoleon, he astonished the council of state 
by the readiness with which he illustrated any point in discussion, 
by quoting whole passages, extempore, from the Roman civil law, 
a subject which might seem to be entirely foreign to liim, as his 
whole life had been passed in the ' tented field.' On being 
at^kcd by Treilhard how lie had acquired so familiar a knowledge 
of law affairs, he replied : " ' When I was merely a lieutenant, I was 
put under arrest, unjustly it is true ; but that is nothing to the 
point. The little room which was assigned for my prison, contain- 
ed no furniture but an old chair, an old bed, and an old cupboard • 
in the cupboard was a ponderous folio volume, older, and more 
worm-eaten than all the rest ; it proved to be the Digest. As I 
bad no paper, pens, ink, or pencils, you rnay easily imagine that 
•'his book was a valuable prize to me. It was so volnminous. and 
be leaves were so covered with marginal notes in manuscript, 
bat, had I been confined a hundred years, I could never have been 
idle. I was only ten days deprived of my liberty ; but, on recov. 
ering it, I was saturated with Justinian, and the decisions of 
the Ro.Tian legislators. Thus I picked up my knowledge of civil 
law.' " Anecdotes of Napoleon, p. 28. 

k 



170 SELF EDUCATION. 

that age. His penetrative glance so scanned the domain 
of existing knowledge as to leave nothing for his ambition 
in future years but improvement of science. Now if so 
short a period will suffice to decide upon the merits of an 
encyclopedia, and to project a revolution in science, the 
benefits of which must continue until tongues shall cease 
iind knowledge shall vanish away, then, it follows that the 
smallest fraction of time has an intrinsic value in this 
pursuit, and may be productive of the highest consequen- 
ces. Should the irregularity which this interrupted mode 
of study will occasion be deemed objectionable ; should it 
altogether deprive the student of many of those introduc- 
tory sciences by which, under other circumstances, his 
progress might be characterized, let it be remembered that 
these are things which can not lessen the value of knowl- 
edge when gained. On the contrary, they may even 
enhance its importance by imparting certain qualifications 
rarely afi"ox'ded by a more tedious preliminary process. 
"It was said by Eugene of Savoy, that the greatest 
generals have commonly been those who have been at once 
raised to command, and introduced to the great operations 
of war without being employed in the petty calculations 
and manoeuvres which employ the time of an inferior 
officer. In literature, the principle is equally sound. The 
great tactics of criticism will, in general, be best under- 
stood by those who have not had much practice in drilling 
syllables and particles."* 

2-l-.^'With many there is a distrust of time — they are 
not willing to depend upon time to bring their efforts to 
maturity. From the imcertainty of life, they are afraid 
of not living to reap the fruit of their labor. Or, if 
exempted from fears of this kind, they imagine others 
liave so much the start of them, and that the world is so 

* Macauly'.s Miscellanies: (Athenian Orators.) 



HINDRANCES. 171 

pre- occupied as to exclude all chance of success. These 
notions arc c(|ually unfounded. Life is precarious, but its 
precaviousness is much more regarded by the young than 
by the old. Not that the aged are less convinced of 
liuman frailty, for the fact in this respect is far otherwise ; 
tlio reason of their apparent indifference is, that tliey are 
aware such impressions, if indulged, must be destructive 
of all enterprise. Barely contingent evils are either to be 
t)irown entirely out of the account, or allowed to exert no 
otlier than a c|ixickening influence upon necessary duties. 
But probably the idea that time will not furnish an 
occasion for the exercise of any abilities which w'e may 
acquire, is still more detrimental. Such is tlie constitution 
of society and such tlie course of affairs, that every 
individual will, sooner or later, find a station fitted to hi:- 
(•a[)acity, be that capacity little or great. Learning make:- 
employment for itself; it creates a demand which nothing 
else can supply. And, therefore, as it regards pre -occu- 
pancy, we may pronounce it impossible. Genius has 
power to change the direction of energy and modify the 
character of taste. It sees things in a new light and 
opens upon the world new sources of enterprise. These 
considerations should allay impatience and remove doubt ; 
for no greater security ought to be desired tlian others 
have enjoyed, and no further assurance of success thai: 
the certainty of being useful. Time is essential to all our 
undertakings, and the influence which it exerts in their 
favor, is rarely estimated. It not only carries us, without 
any agency of our own, through all the grades of human 
Ufe, but improves our efforts and ripens to maturity 
projects which otherwise must have remained crude and 
worthless. This is a species of advantage tliat should 
engage the attention of the student not less than the mai: 
of business ; to both it is the cherishing hand of Provl- 



172 SELE EDUCATION.. 

dence througli wMch the germ receives development. — 
Lord Baeon lias, not without reason, ascribed much to 
this source, that has too oftenbeen thought the product of 
talents merely. " Truth is by universal consent the 
daughter of time. It is a mark, therefore, of utter 
weakness and narrowness of mind to attribute infinite 
effects to authors, but to withhold its due from time, the 
author of atithors and of aU authority. "^^ 

25. The last hindrance which I shall notice arises from 
a false view of literary institutions. Literature, like 
commerce, is equally adapted to all places. It depends 
not upon localities, but upon energies. Yet with multi- 

* Interpretation of Nature. As it is jjossible to abuse this depen- 
dence upon time, by an ill adjustment of plans, I shall add the 
following: — "In the systematical application of general and refined 
rules to their private concerns, men frequently err from calculating 
their measures upon a scale disproportionate to the ordinary dura- 
tion of human life. Tliis is one of the many mistakes into which 
projectors are apt to fall ; and hence the ruin which so often 
overtakes them, while sowing the seeds of a harvest which others 
are, to reap. A few years more might have secured to them, 
selves the prize which they had in view ; and changed the opinion 
of the world, (which is always regulated by the accidental cir- 
cumstances of failure or of success,) from contempt of their folly 
into admiration of tlieir pagacity and perseverance. It is 
observed by the Comte de Bussi, that ' time remedies all mis- 
chances; and that men die unfortunate, only because they did 
not live long enough. Mare&chal d'Estree, who died rich at a 
hundred, would have died a begger, had he lived only to eighty.' 
The maxim, like most other apothems, is stated in terms much 
too unqualified; but it may lurnish matter for many interesting 
reflections, to those who have surveyed with attention the char- 
acters which have passed before them on the stage of life; or 
who amuse themselves with marking the trifling and fortuitous 
circumstances by which the multitude are decided, in pronouncing 
their verdicts of foresight, or of improvidence." Stewart's Ele- 
ments of Philosophy, Vol. 2, p. 103. 



HINDRANCES. 173 

tudos the lumo of a college is synonymous with education. 
Tlicy imagine that a residence there must necessarily make 
them scholars ; to them the very atmosphere of such place.'? 
is impregnated with science. And shut out from such favor- 
ed scenes, denied access to the consecrated retreats of lite- 
rature, where knowledge is supposed to be imbibed without 
stud}-, it is no wonder they are little inclined to strenuous 
effort. Some knowledge — enough for the ordinary busi- 
ness transactions of life — they may feel compelled to 
acquire ; but an extended education is not to be attempted 
in the absence of this local and principal advantage. 
JIow foolish this ignorant conceit is, must be evident to 
the least reflection. A very short acquaintance with liter- 
ary institutions brings them upon a level with all other 
places which afford the means of instruction. One building 
is just as propitious to education as an other. There can 
be no possible difference in local habitations and names, 
except as one may have books or teachers which the other 
has not. But we have already shown that books and 
teachers are not essential to mental proficiency ; there is 
not, therefore, even here, any sovereign superiority in 
particular establishments of this nature. If wo wish to 
retain the impression that such institutions are fraught 
with unusual dignity or have any uncommon power by 
which they exorcise ignorance from the human mind, wo 
can only do so by carefully avoiding all intercourse with 
them, and leaving imagination to rove without the aid of 
reason. "Let him who is fond of indulging in dream- 
like existence," says Basil Montagu, "go to Oxford, lefc 
him study this magnificent spectacle, the same under all 
aspects, with its mental twilights tempering the glare of 
noontide, or mellowing the shadowy moonlight ; let him 
wander in her sylvan suburbs, or linger in her cloistered 
halls ; but let him not catch the din of scholars or teachers, 



174 SELP EDUCATION. 

or dine or sap with them, or speak a word to any of the 
privileged inhabitants ; for if he does, the spell will be 
broken, the poetry and the religion gone, and the place of 
enchantment will melt from his embrace into thin air."* 
I will not question what the power of association can do ; 
it is enough to have shown that no higher principle is 
involved. 

Such are the obstacles to self- education. Not one of 
them invincible ; not one of them but what may, by de- 
termined zeal, become conducive to greater usefulness and 
to greater fame. 

* Life of Bacon, chap. 1. Mt- 



CHAPTER VII. 
Advantages of Self Education. 

These are of two kinds. I. Those which belong to 
education iu general. II. Those which belong to self- 
education in particular. 

' ' I. Mind and matter are constituent elements of tlic 
same being, and iu admitting the doctrine of improvement 
as applicable to both — as applicable to both in a similar 
manner, wo are taking a stand of the highest practical 
consequence. Much of physical cultivation consists in 
personal skill, or in the acquisition of that knowledge 
which is gained only by practice. This may be seen in 
every occupation. A little practice enables one to perform 
with ease what is nearly or quite impossible to the inex- 
perienced. Thus it is with the mind. It must be trained 
to its work, or iu point of practical ability it will never be 
able to leave the nonage of life. Not that its powers are 
insufficient, but merely because it can not know how to 
apply them. Education supplies the mind with knowledge, 
and this knowledge is the means on which achievement 
depends. Where this provision is wanting, there must 
ever be the gi-eatest difficulty in arriving at truth. 
There is the most palpable evidence fliat many shameful 
absurdities have no other foundation than the unfur- 
nished state of the human understanding. It is also 
known that the desolate physical condition of the savage 
is only paralleled by the barrenness of his intellect: he is 



176 SELF EDUCATION. 

ajiparently as destitute of ideas as the game he pursues. 
But the civilized and cultivated man is richly furnished 
with ideas, that have been evolved from his own mind, 
and the comforts by which he is surrounded are so man) 
proofs of the activity and supremacy of his thoughts. 

Important as is this view of the subject, we will leave 
it for one which is, perhaps, still more striking. What 
machinery is to the body, in controlling the laws of matter, 
science is to the mind in the investigation of truth ; or, tt. 
make the expression more accm'ate, the aids of science art 
e(][ually available to the mind as to the body. Man is 
naturally a very feeble being, but by the help of mechanics 
he forms an alliance with nature, and takes to himself thi 
dreadful power of the elements. By the accumulation o 
force, and by giving to it a various application, he ha; 
renovated and exalted his condition, and brought withii 
his reach a variety of blessings which could not otherwis 
have existed. Science, however, has not exhausted itsel 
in contributing to the physical advantages of the world 
Its effects are indeed more splendid, more numerous, am 
more beneficent in the intellectual than in the materia] 
system. Witness the savage ; he has- not only no steam- 
ship to plough the ocean, and no cotton factory to 
fabricate his cloths, but he has no law, no medicine, nc 
divinity, no agriculture, — and in short, no thoughts. I- 
mean those amazing thoughts, those revelations of science 
that are locked in eternal secrecy from the uncultivated 
mind. Thoughts he has, but they are only such as are 
inevitable, and therefore, common to all, without the 
trouble of voluntary application ; these only enable him to 
provide scantily for the present moment, whereas, the 
deeper thinking of educated mind supplies an exhaustles 
abundance^ and that for life. The one feebly meets tho 
wants of sentient existence, but the other provides for all 



ADVANTAGES. 177 

that human nature can need. As well miglifc ^ye hope to 
make a miiTor of the sea wlien the winds of heaven arc 
in commotion, as to preserve unbroken the wretchedness 
of man, when the giant powers^ of his soul have been 
properly evoked. That " knowledge is power,"* is no where 
more keenly felt than among the abettors of helotism ; so 
sensible arc they of this, that they can not rest until the 
mind is reduced to a blank, and the image of God 
degraded to a brute. Never did the traveler upon the 
trembling side of Etna or Vesuvius, feel more alarmed 
for his safety or possess less means of defense, than the 
despot when popular intelligence threatens an explosion. 
Hence, the freedom of the press has justly been style<l 
the palladium of liberty ; and I shall add, that unrestricted 
Inquiry is not less requisite in every department of human 
interest. The forms of language and mathematics have 
done for the mind, what sculpture and painting have for 
the body, but this is their least praise. Not only has a 
valuable thought been retained, but transcriptions of it 
have been made with almost inconceivable rapidity, and 
truth has thus become an article of commerce for the 
benefit of the world. It is however by furnishing the 
means of convergence and accumulation to the scattered 
rays of intellectual light, that science has done most for 
human nature. This artificial augmentation of truth has 
given to the observer a superhuman abilit}'. Science 
usually consists of a series of observations founded on 
one or more general principles, and so arranged that the 

* I have not met with precisely this form of words any whcro 
in Bacon, though the sentiment is his in the fullest degree, as is 
evident from tlic quotations on the seventieth page of this work, 
and from many other passages which might be cited, partic 
ularly the following : '' Those two objects, human knowledge an 1 
power, are really the same." Great Instauralion : (Distribution 
of the work,) 



173 SELP EDUCATION. 

mind lias just strength enougli to ascend from one point 
to another, like marching up an inclined plane. Now 
these transitions can not be made without assistance, 
although the ascent has been carefully graduated to the 
abilities of the mind ; for the various symbols, rules, and 
forms incident to pursuits of this kind; are so many 
mechanical powers constantly counteracting our natural 
imbecility. And it is in the use of these convertible signs 
and established formulas, that enlightened nations so much 
excel barbarians in all their undertakings. It is to aids 
of this kind, rather than to superior capacity, that we are 
to look for the extension of knowledge. A man who 
attempts to raise a ship with pulleys does not rely upon 
his personal strength, nor is the speed of a boat deter- 
jnined by the physical ability of the engineer. Herschel 
did not discover a new planet because his eyes were better 
than those of other men; nor did Cicero excel in 
eloquence, independent of the advantages of a refined 
and powerful language. Long enough might the former 
have scanned the " staiTy cope" to no effect, had he used 
only the visual orgaus which nature supplied; and the 
latter would have died without celebrity, had he declaimed 
in the colloquial phrases of some unwritten dialect. 

Moral science has been not less decidedly benefitted by 
cultivation; the ethics and divinity, the politics and 
jurisprudence of civilized nations, are in all respects 
superior to the same branches among the uncivilized. 
Rome, though destitute of the true religion, had a body 
of civil law which has been admired in all succeeding 
ages, and the character of her religious worship was 
infinitely better than that of the unlettered pagan tribes 
by which she was surrounded. 

Such are the advantages of education by whatever 
means it may bo obtained. 



ADVANTAGES. 179 

ll. Self-cdueatiou, in the highest sense of the term, is 
an analytical process. It raises a man to the rank of an 
inventor of science, and imbues hhn with mental qualifica- 
tions adapted to the pursuit of the highest purposes of 
life. It does not allow the student to pass over indefinite 
portions of the field of science without observation, nor 
can it consist with the supposition that facilities ft-r 
knowledge are in any measure tantamount to knowledge 
itself. By increasing the appropriate means of scientific 
acquisition, students are soon brought to the knowledge 
of facts which none but the genius of the very f^ithers of 
science could otherwise have discovered. But we are not 
to suppose that their education is at all commensurat-e 
with that of their illustrious progenitors. This coinci- 
dence of sentiment is not the result of similar abilities. 
In the one case, intellectual activity has fabricated a 
system ; in the other, mere apathy has led to the adoption 
of a system because it was already formed. The most 
ordinary navigator may now cross the Atlantic, but will 
he be deemed a Christopher Columbus? A man by 
means of machinery can raise a great weight, but does 
this prove that he is a very Samson? Neither does a 
tolerable understanding of the Copernican system prove 
that a man is an astronomer. Possession, simply, does 
not prove ownership. If one has no more than the theory, 
he lacks the most important element of true greatness; 
for in all such instances, the theory having been passively 
imbibed, can not supply that practical philosophy which is 
the most valuable part of knowledge. 

The influence of self- education, in the formation of 
intellectual character, deserves to be especially considered. 
Whoever has turned his attention to the great characters 
which are exhibited on the page of history, must be sensi- 
ble, that all who were equally eminent had not equal 



180 SELF EDUCATION. 

advantages. This result is a tacit reflection upon the 
justness of our tlieoretical deductions. We see one sur- 
rounded witli patronage and wealth, and led on by 
competent guides to the highest virtue, and to the 
greatest vigor of mind ; while another, destitute of every 
means of cultivation, and, to all human appearance, 
incapable of eminence, accomplishes the same result, 
and stands the acknowledged equal of his more favored 
competitor. In the latter case, the person breaks sud- 
denly from obscurity, and -seems to undergo a transforma- 
tion by some mystic process of nature. Now, as no effect 
is without its cause, however unintelligible to us may be 
the mode of its operation, we must conclude that there is 
some occult principle at work here, which is wont to 
develope itself in this manner. This principle, so long 
overlooked, should be recognized as one of the most 
efficient means of instruction. Essentially it is perhaps 
nothing more than the light of experience ; nothing more 
than the information derived from the use of our faculties, 
superadded to preceptive knowledge. Or, if the reader 
please, it is an initiation into the mysterious, and to the 
merely speculative observer, inscrutable law of intellect- 
ual acquirement. It is not the quantity of abstract truth 
crowded into the mind that is decisive of mental character. 
Our hopes are poised upon the mode of attainments 
because upon the mode must we rely for a certain kind of 
knowledge without which all other acquisitions are neces- 
sarily abortive. For the same reason that a person who 
inherits property is more likely to fail in the application of 
it to business, than the person who originally acquired it, 
would have been, do we judge that the mode of acquiring 
knowledge must have great influence upon its possessor, 
and upon the uses he will be likely to make of it. When 
a poor man by force of character, and the practice of 



ADVANTAGES. 181 

economj'', has succeeded in acquiring property, he feels 
himself initiated into the secret of pecuniary aec[uisition, 
and he is much more capable of retaining his capital, or 
of giving it a profitable emjiloyment, than one whose mind 
has not been enlightened by the process of accumulation. 
And need it be said that Galileo, who invented the tele- 
scope, was a much greater optician than he who merely 
reads a description of it ? Had tliis celebrated philoso- 
pher lived, his character was a pledge for future success ; 
but of the thousands who have an equal, though exclu- 
sively theoretical knowledge, not one in fire hundred can 
be relied on for the extension of science. Truth, acquired 
by intentional research, is not only valuable in itself, but 
is the result of principles before which every obstacle 
must give way. As one truth contains the essence of all 
truth, so the method of one discovery is substantially the 
method of all discoveries ; ' and Avhen the mind thus 
becomes conscious of its ability to conduct investigations 
for itself, it is no longer in the power of external circum- 
stances to interrupt its inquiries; and frequently these 
inquiries are of such a nature that it is as tittle in the 
power of outward things to aid them. Once in possession 
of a knowledge of its own capacit}', the mind can never 
afterwards yield to human authorit}-, nor be embarrassed 
for the want of such secondary assistance. Thence- 
forward its own observations become the basis of its c<m- 
clusions, and in none of its conclusions is anything but 
truth knowingly allowed to have weight. 

If the life of Patrick Henry, or of Peter the Great, 
were subjected to a rigid analysis, it would appear that 
although neither of them had a scientific education, as 
science is taught in the schools or embodied in books, yet 
both were eminent, almost without a parallel. The form- 
er commenced the practice of law with only sis weeks 



182 SELF EDUCATION. 

study, and the latter entered at once upon the most 
sublhne, and perhaps the only practicable plan of regen- 
erating a whole empire. It is easy to call Peter a savage, 
as his biographer has done, and to reflect upon Mr, Henry 
for his want of literature, but it was not in the power of 
education to make either of them greater. Each had a 
eomplemeut of principles wrought out by the energy of 
his own understanding, and as perfect as any that exist, 
whether written or unwritten. Our intellectual faculties 
are much like the several senses. They admit of external 
aid, but their first or instinctive operations are peifect in 
their kind, and take hold on principles, the depth of which 
no liuman mind can fathom. Thus a child will ask ques- 
tions which the wisest philosopher can not answer. By 
this we preeeiye that wherever mind acts, it displays a 
power but little dependent on foreign assistance. Its 
capacity is greater than its opportunities. Its action is 
that of a superior nature, and affords both the proof of 
its existence and the best means of improvement. 

Another important advantage derived from this method 
of study is the influence which it exerts in the re- 
tention and application of knowledge. The peculiar 
difficulties which the solitary student has to encounter 
can not fail to make a deep impression upon his mind, 
and science gained in this manner must necessarily be 
remembered with greater tenacity. Universal expe- 
rience proves that an omission of practice in any of the 
professions is followed by a declension of theoretical 
knowledge. Take, for instance, a teacher of ancient 
languages. How soon does the brilliancy of scholar- 
ship fade when the current of thought is turned from 
its wonted channels. Almost with tears will the aged 
scholar tell you he can not read G-reek. When he 
graduated, when he was in the midst of professional life, 



ADVANTAGES. 183 

all was familiar; what he saw frequently he knew readily ; 
hut time has i)asscd upon him, and the deepest inscrip- 
tions upon the tablet of memory have cither been 
obliterated or greatly defaced. Thus the classic acquisi- 
tions of the ordinary student arc held by a tenure 
different from those of the self-educated. The one claims 
by possession simply; the other by right of conquest, 
]\aving subdued time, and poverty, and every thing else 
that had power to dispute his progress. This conflict 
makes the impression indellible and secures permanently 
to the individual what could otherwise be retained only by 
constant repetitions. Those who labor thus for the 
attainment of knowledge, feel the want of it more keenly 
and know precisely to what uses it should be applied ; 
whereas, they who pass from one thing to anotlier with 
the indifference of mere spectators, though they should 
graduate at college, will be more likely to die prematurely 
through intemperance, than to repay to the world the 
expense of their tuition. No submission to instruction, 
no thoughtless assent to established propositions, can secure 
any proper use of the facts so received. The eshaustless 
treasures of science will remain totally useless to minds of 
this description. Could they see the importance of what 
they learn in the light of one who has to struggle with 
ignorance and pines hopelessly for truth, how would such 
opportunities be improved ! No valuable fact would lie 
dormant. Philanthropy, which is inseparable from the 
love of trutli, would urge them to undertake for human 
weal. At what hazard and toil have not the sons of 
science bestowed their contributions on the world? If 
some have veered with every direction of the pojjular gale, 
it has been from mistaken notions of utility, or, at the 
worst, it was but the spirit of speculation which, in science 
as, in commerce, too often pirates upon the public interest. 



TS4: SEliF EDUCATION. 

But these exceptions aside, — and tliey are not many, — a 
chivalrous devotion to the higher interests of humanity 
has always marked the career of intellectual improvement. 
In minds properly imbued, science is a living influence 
whose emanations are as healthful, as they are constant; 
but in the thoughtless, it resembles the exhalations of the 
stagnant pool vdiich are both useless and offensive. 

Self-education, by excluding all unnecessary assistance, 
and confining the mind to original sources, gives greater 
certainty to knowledge. On this point, the following 
observations from Locke, are suflScient. " I hope it 
will not be thought arrogance to say, that perhaps we 
should make greater progress in the discovery of rational , 
and contemplative knowledge, if we sought it in the foun- 
tain, in the consideration of things themselves, and made 
use rather of our own thoughts than other men's to find 
it : for I think we may as rationally hope to see with other 
men's eyes, as to know by other men's understandings. 
So much as we ourselves consider and comprehend of 
truth and reason, so much we j)ossess of real and true 
knowledge. The floating of other men's opinions in our 
brains, makes us not one jot the more knovdng, though 
they happen to be true. What in them was science, is in 
us but opiniatrety; whilst we give up our assent only to 
reverend names, and do not, as they did, employ our owh 
reason to understand those truths which gave them repu- 
tation. Aristotle was certainly a knowing man ; but no 
body ever thought him so, because he blindly embraced, 
and confidently vented, the opinions of another. And if 
the taking up of another's principles, without examining 
them, made not him a philosopher, I suppose it will hardly 
make any, body else so. In the sciences every one has so 
much as he really knows and comprehends : what he 
believes only and takes upon trust, are but shreds ;. which, 



HINDRAMCES. 185 

however, will in the whole piece make no considerable 
addition to his stock who gathers thera. Such borrowed 
wealth, like fairy- money, though it were gold in the hand 
from which he received it, will be but leaves and dust 
when it comes to use."* 

Again, and lastly, self- education affords, or rather, 
renders unavoidable, earlier opportunities for observation, 
than are furnished by the common course of learning. 
It is indeed a Herculean task to plod through the 
dry, abstract rules of a science, unattended by a single 
associate, and relieved by no remark from a living teach- 
er ; but the advantages are in proportion to the difti- 
culty of the work. The science obtained in this manner 
is the least important consequence to the student. His 
mental habits assume a character of phUosopbical investi- 
gation at the most favorable juncture of life for new 
discoveries. Young men have new opinions. It is not 
expected that the aged will change their sentiments. But 
the young have properly no opinions, until entering :it 
once on a course of observation, they take new and, it 
may be, vastly better views of things. Almost every 
great enterprise has been formed in youth — in early 
youth ; the muid, at its first glance sketched the outline 
of its future history, and left nothing to maturer years but 
the labor of filling up the juvenile plan. Now if observa- 
tions made at this period are to exercise a governing 
influence through life — if the brightest and best hopes of 
the future ai"e involved in the activities of the youthful 
mind, then that method of study must be most beneficial 
which most facilitates efficient thinking. 

• Book 1, chap. 4, Sec. 23. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Motives to Self Education. 

1. Those who have been obliged to educate themselves 
have hitherto been subject to a certain degree of oppro- 
brium ; they have been regarded in the literary world as 
a sort of lower caste, from which might be withheld by 
those of more legitimate extraction, such honors and 
advantages as are peculiar to leai-ning. I speak not now 
of collegiate honors, or emoluments, but of that estimate 
of character — that just appreciation of attainments, which 
is more regarded by every man of real science, than titles 
or money. The literary man, and the self-educated, not 
less than others, feels little solicitude beyond the desire of 
n fair valuation : if merit is admitted, he cares not how 
capricious other allotments may be. When he has toiled 
with untiring zeal and been so fortunate as to produce 
works that fix the character of language and give immor- 
tality to his name, it is not just that he should still be 
called "illiterate."* When he has gone over the entire 

* Mr. Macauly applies this term to Bunyan- '' Dr. Johnson, all 
of whose studies were desultory, and who hated, as lie said, to read 
books through, made an exception in favor of the Pilgrim's Progress. 
That work, he said, was one of the two or three works which 
he wished longer. It was by no common merit that the illiter- 
ate sectary extracted praise-like, this from the most pedantic of 
•ritics, and the most bigoted of Tories." (Review of Southey's 
Ufa of Bunyan.) "It is very amusing aud very instructive to 
•ompar« th» Pilgrim's Progrees with the Grace Abounding. 



MOTIVES. 187 

field of science and literature, and gained a position 
evidently in advance of most of his contemporaries, it is 
not right that hia knowledge should be stjled "niultifari- 

Thc latter work is indeed one of the most remarkable pieces of 
autobiograpliy in the world. It is a full and open confession of 
the fancies wiiich passed through the mind of an illiterate man." 
(Ibid.) 

I give these passages at length as illustrations of st^le — of 
tliat style which is used in speaking of this class of writers. 
In one sentence, the author receives tlie higiiest praise for a 
literary performance, and in the next, he is reproached for his 
illiteracy. Good writing is certainly the best proof of attain, 
mcnts in literature ; and we can not account for this singular 
oversiglit, except by supposing the author under the influence of 
that popular prejudice which makes a residence at college and 
a knowledge of the ancient languages essential to literary char- 
acter. That we must ascribe it to something of this kind, rather 
than to an unwillingness to treat Bunyan with respect, is evident 
not only from the above, but from the following very high — 
perhaps extravagant — encomium. 

"The style of Bunyan is delightful to every reader, and in- 
valuable to every person who wishes to obtain a wide 
command over the English language. The vocabulary is 
the vocabulary of the common people. There is not an ex- 
pression, if wc except a few technical terms of theology, which 
would puzzle the rudest peasant. Yet no writer has said more 
exactly what lie meant to say. For magnificence, for pathos* 
for vehement exhortation, for subtle disquisition, for every pur- 
pose of the poet, the orator, and the divine, this homely dialect. 
the dialect of plain workingracn, was perfectly sufficient. There 
is no book in our literature on which we could so readily stake 
the fame of the old unpolluted English language ; no book wiiich 
shows 90 well how rich that language is in its own proper 
wealth, and how little it has been improved by all that it lias 
borrowed. Cowper said, forty or fil'ty years ago, that he dared not 
name John Bunyan in his verf.e, for fear of moving a eneer. To 
onr refined forefathers, wc suppose. Lord Roscommon's Essay on 
Translated Verse, and the Duke of Buckinghamshire's Essay on 
Poetry, appeared to be compositions infinitely Bwperior to :ha 



188 SELF EDUCATION. 

ous and discursive, rather than correct and profound.'** 
Discriminations of this kind may possibly be just in a 
given case,' but not generally ; not more so when applied 
to the self-educated, than to those educated at school. 
And 3'et to the one class they are applied witt the great- 
est freq[uency; to the other class rarely, if ever. This 
evinces a determination not to admit the self-taught to an 
equal standing in the republic of letters ; they may be 
naturalised as an act of favor or of justice, but must still 
be considered as aliens by birth, and as wanting in some 
of the req[tusites of perfect scholarship. It is for this 
reason that the offices of instruction are monopolized by 
those who have received what is called a regular education ; 
it is deemed hazardous for others to assume such respon- 
sibilities, as if fituess depended on the place where they 
had studied, and not on the things which they had learned. 
For the same cause, in England, every minister of the 
established church must have a university education ; and 

allegory of the preaching tinker. We live in better times ; and 
we are not afraid to say that, though there were many clever men 
in England daring the latter half of the seventeenth century, 
there were only two great creative minds. One of these minds 
produced the Paradise Lost, the other the Pilgrim's Progress." 
(Ibid.) 

Here, then, is an author rivalling Milton, and 3'et illiterate 1 
Much, very much, may be done by an illiterate man; but there 
is one thing which he can not do — he can not write a goci book- 
This is the highest achievement in letters ; no scholar has done, 
or can do, more. In conclusion, let it be observed that Mr. Ma- 
cauly's remark must necessarily be extended so as to include 
Sbakspeare and Homer, for if Bunyan was illitetate, so were they 

* See Amer. Bib, Repos., Jan. 1841, Art 7, where these words 
are used by a writer to describe the attainments of Dr. Adam 
Clarke. This is the stereotype form of alluding to self-educa- 
ted men; it does not seem fashionable to admit that they can 
bj any possibility be thorough Bcholara 



MOTIVES. 189 

every practitioner of medicine, in London, must be a 
gi'aduato of Oxford or Cambridge, in order to enjoy the 
honors and immunities of his profession.* Such abuses 
are not so frequent in this country, but much of the same 
spirit which dictated the above regulation exists among us 
and manifests itself whenever an opportunity presents. 
A single instance will sufficiently confirm the present 
remark. By a requisition of the highest judiciary of this 
state, candidates for the bar, arc obliged to pursue their 

* " In the reign of Henry VIII, a college of Physicians was 
constituted in London by charter, for the express purpose of 
examining and admitting applicants duiy qualified for the prac- 
tice of physic in the metropolis, and excluding and interdicting 
quacks and empirics. Some of the first members of this college 
were foreign graduates; and no condition of having received their 
education or degrees at any particular place was thought of 
with respect to them or their successors; nor was any distinc- 
tion of practitioners into different classes established, but all 
professional honors were left open tn every physician of sufficient 
learning and good morals. In process of time, however, an in- 
novation was introduced of distinguishing the physicians of 
London into two classes, fellows of the college, and licentiates; 
the former possessing all the collegiate powers and emoluments, 
the latter having simply the right of practising. And the same 
monopolizing spirit produced the further limitation, that no one 
should be allowed to claim admission to the fellowship of the 
college, who was not a graduate of Oxford or Cambridge. Such 
is the state of things at the present day ; and this absurd and ar- 
rogant exclusion of men whose learning and professional skill 
may be inferior to those of none of their competitors, is pertina- 
ciously maintained by a body, originally instituted for the sole 
purpose of the public good, but perverted in its object by the 
mean jealousy and selfishness ever attending the corporation 
spirit."^ Aikin's Letters to a Son, vol. 2, p. 19. 

The evil tendency of such associations, or what Dr. Aikin call 
the meanness of the corporation spirit was remarked by Addison. 
"When arts and sciences arc so perverted as to dispose men to 
act in contradiction to the rest of the community, and to set up 



190 SELF EDUCATION. 

classical studies under a teacher, or fail of admission.* 
These things show that oral instruction is considered 
essential to education, and that no one is fairly entitled to 
the character of a scholar whose acquirements have been 
made without such assistance. Now those who have 
confidence in the human mind, and who know, such impu- 
tations as the foregoing to be both unjust and ridiculous, 
must feel anxious to relieve themselves from the withering 
influence of aristocratic pride. They will naturally desire 
by the unquestionable character of their own attainments 
to redeem self- education from unmerited reproach, and to 
demonstrate the folly of that assumed superiority now 
almost universally conceded to the graduate. Or if lite- 
rature is an exception among hum.an pursuits, and can not 
be successfully prosecuted by individual enterprise and 
skill — if there is still any thing problematical in the 
undertaking, they must wish to solve the difficulty and 
place the truth beyond dispute. Others are to come 
after, the world is yet to have its generations of depressed 
and unfortunate beings, and before all these are given up 
to convictions of impossibility with the certainty of dying 
in hopeless ignorance, a daring and benevolent spirit will 

for a kind of separate republic among themselves, they draw 
upon them indignation of the wise, and the contempt of the 
ignorant. It has, indeed, been observed, that persons, who are 
veiy much esteemed for their knowledge and ingenuity in their 
private characters, have acted like strangers to mankind, and 
lo the dictates of right reason, when joined together in a body. 
Like several chemical waters, that are each of them clear and 
transparent when separate, but ferment into a thick troubled 
liquor when they arc mixed in the same vial." The Free. 
holder, No. 33. 

* " Time spent in classical study without the aid of a compe- 
tent teacher— will not be allowed." Rules and Orders of the 
Supreme Court of the State of N. Y., p. 10. 



MOTIVES. lljl 

aim to know the utmost limits of intellectual capacity. In 
short, the self-educated desire neither to be borne down 
themselves by obloquy, nor to be accessary to the evils in- 
flicted upon the poor by the popular error, that education 
can be had only at literary institutions. 

2. But however desirable it may be to repel the asper- 
sions to which self-education has been so unjustly subject- 
ed, there is an other motive of much sterner character — 
necessity. All that we learn must be self-learned, because 
others can not learn for us. It matters not what & 
teacher may know, as his pupil can only learn by exercris- 
ing his own mind ; and if he will do this he may learn 
whether he has a teacher or not. But this necessity 
arises as well from the condition of science as from the 
constitution of the mind. I have already observed that 
what is not known can not be taught ; the student who 
departs ever so little from his test book — who aims &t 
any thing more than second-hand knowledge, is obliged 
to be his own instructor. No one can guide him iu 
unknown regions, and he must forever be confined to the 
beaten path or assume the responsibility of self-direction. 
We surely ought to acquiesce in a necessity which ulti- 
mately enforces independence and wrests from pupilage ail 
those who ever attain to honorable distinction. Provi- 
dence interposes to prevent the evils of mental vassalage, 
and also to remind those who are destitute of foreign 
assistance, that they are able to help the — useless. 

3. By dii'ccting our own education, we secui'e an 
exemption from the trammels of authority. When the 
mind is just commencing its survey of things, and needs 
more knowledge than it has had time to accumulate, 
authoritative instructions are often necessary for the pre- 
servation of life or the direction of conduct ; but when 
time has afforded opportunities for acquisitions of knowi- 



192 SELF KDTJCATIOK. 

edge equal to the wants of the individual, this authority 
is.uo longer needed, and can no longer be exerted without 
injury to the intellectual constitution. Man was made to 
think for himself, and when he ceases to do so he is not 
the being his Creator designed ; he is absorbed by other 
minds and loses his identity in the world around him. No 
where is such a result more to be apprehended or more to 
be dreaded than in those halls of learning, where youth 
are expected to form their characters and store their 
minds with hoarded knowledge. Here the wisest men 
shape their ideas according to a text-book, and the under- 
standing itself is subjected to the authority of authors. 
Not to submit, is contumacy ; to do so, is the destruction 
of reason. Under these circumstances, youth must 
become indifferent to truth, or blind to error; must cease 
to think, or think only- as they are bidden. Such a state 
of mind may consist well enough with pursuits which task 
only the memory, but it will not allow the higher faculties 
to' be employed. 

On this subject, as much, and more, has been said by 
Lord Bacon. "In the habits and regulations of schools, 
universities, and the like assemblies, destined for the 
abode of learned men, and the improvement of learning, 
every thing is found to be opposed to the progress of the 
sciences. For the lectures and exercises are so ordered, 
that any thing out of the common track can scarcely enter 
the thoughts and contemplations of the mind. If, how- 
ever, one or two have perhaps dared to use their liberty, 
they can only impose the labor on themselves, without 
deriving any advantage from the association of others; 
and if they put up with this, they will find their industry 
and spirit of no slight advantage to them in making their 
fortune. For the pursuits of men in such situations are, 
15. s it were, chained down to the writings of particular 



MOTIVES. 193 

authors, and if any daro to dissent from thora, he is 
immediately attacked as a turbulent and revolutionary 
spirit."* 

And again, In the tract on the Praise of Knowledge, 
he says, with more severity : " In the universities of 
Europe at this day, they learn nothing but to believe : 
first to believe that others know that which they know not ; 
and after, themselves know that which they know not. 

* Nov. Org. B. 1. aph. 90. 

Wo might easily add many corroborating testimonies, but the 
following, from Dr. Playfair, must suffice. ".It would bo gratify- 
ing to bo able to observe, that the universities of Europe had 
contributed to the renovation of science. The fact is otherwise ; — 
they were often the fastnesses from which prejudice and error 
were latest of being expelled. They joined in persecuting the re- 
formers of science. It has been seen, that the masters of the 
university of Paris were aiigry with Galileo for the experiments on 
*he descent of bodies. Even the university of 0.\ford brought on 
itself the indcllible disgrace of persecuting, in Friar Bacon, the 
first man who appears to have had a distinct view of the means by 
which the knowledge of tlic laws of nature must be acquired." 
riayfajr's Preliminary Dissertation to the supplement of the 
Encyclopedia Britanniea, Part 1, Sec. 4. 

Our author has shown how slowly even the most important im- 
proveiBcnts in science can gain admission to such institutions. 
" When one considers the splendor of Newton's discoveries, the 
beauty, the simplicity, and grandeur of the system they unfolded, 
and the demonstrative evidence by which that system was support, 
ed, o«e could liardly doubt, that, to be received, it required only 
to be made known, and that the establishment of the Newtonian 
philosophy all over Europe would very quickly have followed the 
ptiblicalion of it. In drawing this conclusion, however, we should 
make much too small an allowance for the influence of received 
opinion, and the resistance that mere habit is able, for a lime, to 
oppose to the strongest evidence. The Cartesian system of vor- 
tices had [many followers in all the countries of Europe, and 
particularly in France. In the universities of England, though 
the Aristotelian physics, had made an obstinate resistance, they 



194 SELF EDUCATION. 

They are like a becalmed sliip ; they never move but by 
the wind of other men's breath, and have no oars of their 
own to steer withal." That these institutions are what 
they were in the days of Bacon, and that they must ever 
remain substantially what they now are, may be shown 
without difficulty. The first of these facts is familiar to 
all who have any knowledge of the present state of 
Europe. It is thus alluded to by Dugold Stewart. 

had been supplanted by the Cartesian, which became firmly estab- 
ed about the time when their foundation began to be sapped by 
the general progress of science, and particularly by the discoveries 
of Newton. For more than thirty years after the publication of 
those discoveries, the system of vortices kept its ground, and a 
translation from the French into the Latin of the Physics of 
Rohault, a work entirely Cartesian, continued at Cambridge to be 
the text for philosophical instruction. Aboat the year 1718, a new 
and more elegant translation of the same book was published by 
Dr. Samuel Clarke, with the addition of notes, in which that pro. 
found and ingenious writer explamed the views of Newton on the 
principal objects of discussion, so that the notes contained virtually 
a refutation of the text ; they did so, however, only virtually, all 
appearance of argument and controversy being carefully avoided. 
Whether this escaped the notice of the learned Doctors or not is 
uncertain, but the new translation, from its better Latinity, and 
the name of the editor, was readily admitted to all the academical 
honors which the old one had enjoyed. Thus the stratagem of Dr. 
Clarke completely succeeded ; the tutor might prelect from the test, 
but the pupil would sometimes look into the notes, and error is 
never so sure of being exposed as when the truth is placed close to 
it, side by side, witlrout any thing to alarm prejudice, or awaken 
from its lethargy the dread of innovation. Thus, therefore, the 
Newtonian philosophy first entered the University of Cambridge 
under the protection of the Cartesian.'''' Ibid, Part 2, Sec. 4. 

Facts of this kind contain a lesson at once humiliating and in- 
structive. It is not wonderful that a mind so comprehensive as 
that of Bacon, should be disgusted with a narrow policy which 
frowned upon all improvement. Well might he exclaim : '' In 
the universities, all things are found opposite to the advancement 
of the sciences." 



MOTIVES. 195 

" Uawililiig as I am to touch on a topic so liopelcss as 
that of Academical Reform, I can not dismiss this subject, 
without remarking, as a fact, which, at some future 
period, will figure in literary history, that two hundred 
years after the date of Bacon's philosophical works, the 
antitjuated routine of study, originally prescribed in times 
of scholastic barbarism and of popish superstition, should 
in so many Universities, be still suffered to stand ia the 
way of improvements, recommended at once by the present 
state of the sciences, and by the order which nature 
follows in developing the intellectual faculties."* The 
second assertion — that such institutions must remain ^.f, 
they now are, is but too evident both from the history of 
the past and from the nature of the case. Causes whicli 
have operated to prevent any change thus far — causes 
which, for a period of two hundred and fifty years of un- 
paralleled intellectual activity, have kept the universities 
of Europe stationary, will certainly be able to control 
them for tlie time to come. But admitting a change in 
the order of studies and in the kind of studies, yet there 
can bo no improvement because the mind is still subject to 
authority and can never by such aids enlarge the bound- 
aries of knowledge. Its " entire hopes and fortunes must 
be wrapt up in the weak brains, and limited souls of about 
half a dozen mortals,"! while original sources are left 
unexplored, and the highest powers unemployed. 

4. Setting aside the elevated attainments now mention- 
ed, which can be achieved only by self- education, there is 
with many another species of necessity that the most 
unaspiring disposition can not remove. Poverty has ex- 
cluded them from such advantages as are furnished by 
schools, and their only election is between self-education 

* Elemto Phi!., vol. 2, p. 352. 
t Interp. Nature. 



19C SELF EDUCATION. 

and ignorance. In tliis instance the motive' has all the 
force of a divine appointment. The student feels that his 
task has been assigned him by that Being with whom are 
the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, and that its dif- 
ficulties are only intended as an inducement to diligence 
— to that dilligencG which rightly claims supernal patron- 
age. Something more than an ordinary love of inde- 
pendence, and something higher than the wonted range 
of mental aspiration, may perhaps be necessary to 
determine in favor of this course the choice of one who 
has means at his eommaud ; but to the poor, it is the des- 
tiny of nature, and he must either educate himself or yield 
all hopes of improvement. Ho may consent to part with 
originality and never to rise above the subordinate char-; 
acter which a college can bestow, but it avails nothing 
for even these accjuisitions are denied to poverty on every 
other condition but that of self-directed toil. On one side 
is the cheerless oblivion of ignorance ; on the other, the 
insurmountable heights of science. It is here, in the out- 
set of life — of such a life, that the true dignity of human 
nature is displayed. No assistance has been proiFered, 
and therefore none is needed. Under these circumstances, 
we are justified in presuming upon the highest attainments 
by the force of mind alone. This original capacity in man 
for dispensing v/ith the ordinary means of improvement, is 
one of those conservative principles by which, when the 
cycle of error is completed, he starts anew in the career of 
science. Thus, as a compensation to the poor, the guaran- 
tee of greatness is doubled ; to the law imposed by the 
nature of science, is added deliverance from temptation to 
inferior achievements. 

5. Emulation is a motive which, however easily cor- 
rupted, certainly and deservedly esereises great influence 
on every well- constituted mind. When greatness ceases 



MOTIVES. 197 

to inspire emotion, the individual lias sunk too low to be 
the subject of hope. A dcaire for noble deeds always 
arises spontaneously in the presence of merit. The 
uneducated youth may look upon the great masters of 
science and say, if not as Carregio, when he first saw the 
paintings of Kaphael, "I too am a painter" — yet, as one 
conscious of possessing a kindred nature, " I too have a 
mind." These are his examples, their success is the 
pledge of his own, and he is thankful that the world offers 
resistance enough to his progress to call for efibrts which 
may identify him, with the benefactors of mankind. 
Others have had their difficulties to encounter and ho 
would not bo without his ; he entertains no iuferiur hope 
and stipulates for no inferior task. 

6. The improvement of science is another consideration 
of much importance. I am aware that such improvement 
is by some deemed impossible, and the very desire of it is 
viewed as pernicious. Those who aim at nothing original 
themselves are too often unwilling to eountena,nce others 
in attempts at originality ; they have chosen to restrict 
their own labors to the acquisition of second hand 
knowledge, and it afflicts them to see others calling in 
question the propriety of their choice. 

Without becoming as skeptical as Boyle or Dcs Cortes, 
we may admit the possibility of unprecedented changes in 
the literary and scientific world. But these new and 
paramount acquisitions will take place under the auspices 
of a very different spirit from that which suffers so much 
from the fear of innovation. Convinced that truth is ever 
consistent with itself, the true friend of science is wiihng 
to arrive at any conclusion that can be sustained by a 
rigorous induction. The untraveled peasant, who should 
BO fax forget himself as to think that all other landscapes 
were like that which surrounded his own dwelling, would 



198 SELF EDUCATION. 

not be more mistaken, nor less deserving of sober argu- 
mentation, than he who makes defference heresy in matters 
of truth. It may be asked, whence are these improve- 
ments to spring, and how are such diversities to be recon- 
ciled with the unity of tnith, and the stability of science? 
In answer to this, we would observe, that no great enter- 
])rises have ever been carried on to perfection without 
frequent recurrence to first principles : and then only for 
a time, in any one form. We must except, indeed, 
revealed religion, the principles of which are matter of 
revelation, and hence not sixbject to improvement or 
alteration by human wisdom. But even the unimprove- 
able character of first principles in religion serves to show 
the truth of the first part of our observation. Inexpli- 
cable as are the mysteries of faith, they must be retained, 
or we lose our hold on the influence of Christianity. 
Doctrinal corruption has always been followed by practical 
depravity. Luther, who waked the fiames of the Reform- 
ation, did but kindle the smothered embers of evangelical 
truth. Religian, as a whole, has undergone changes, and 
others are probably to follow, which shows us that this 
part of Jehovah's works is subject to progressive develop- 
ment ; but this variety of dispensations is the result of a 
design so ample as to prevent anticipation, except by the 
assistance of types. Not so with common science. Here 
each well-ascertained truth is a stepping stone to another. 
And we are certain that the research is legitimate, although 
we can not tell where the truth may be. Our knowledge 
is as the sources from which it is derived. If it be wrong 
or deficient, it is because our principles are wrong or 
defective. Error springs only from error, and the erron- 
eous inferences which are sometimes drawn from correct 
principles are, in fact, a departure from such principles, 
and not a consequence of them. Hence every sound 



MOTIVES. 199 

conclusion from well-established principlea carries with it 
demonstrable certainty. 

But all sciences are very much as chemistry was some 
years ago — I might rather say, is now. The natural 
elements, fire, air, earth, and water, were considered, and 
very probably, as primitive substances. Observations 
and experiment have, however, dissipated such an unscien- 
titic opinion ; and we have made out a more extended list 
of simple substances, but are no more certain that any of 
these are essentiallj^ primary, than our less learned prede- 
cessors were that such was theirs. Our fii-st principles in 
common science are only so in appearance ; or, what is 
more correct, perhaps, are only so because we have made 
no greater proficiency. Every advance puts us in posses- 
sion of a still more general truth, and this more general 
truth gives a new aspect to all that went before it. On 
tliis account there will be a perpetual variation in science ; 
and what looked like the perfected and immutable fabric of 
knowledge, on a nearer approach, appears no more than a 
rude and shapeless mass of materials. It is evident, 
then, that no one set of first principles can long constitute 
tlie ultima thide of any science. Change follows upon 
change until the original object is lost sight of, or subor- 
dinated and made one among a thousand others, which for 
the time being, are valued only as they are supposed to 
contribute to something still greater. So long as the 
])riiiciples of knowledge are inexhaustible, so long will it 
be impossible to predict what may arise to affect existing 
system. Not that what we now know by the more certain 
methods of acquisition is to tui-n out incorrect ; but that, 
if true, as far as sound philosophy ever affirmed, its truth 
and importance are exceedingly diminished in respect to 
the whole. Naj^, it may be that what is now demonstra- 
bly true, will not only appear true, but more vividly and 



200 • SELF EDUCATION. 

iatereatingiy true. At all events we have the greatest 
reason to distrust the ultimate correctness of our appre- 
hension on the most important points ; and none will be 
less inclined to be dogmatical than he who, beyond all 
dispute, knows the most. Newton, whose mind was 
second to none in its comprehensive grasp of facts, could 
say, however his attainments might appear to others, that 
" the great ocean of truth lay all undiscoA^ered before 
him." Should any suppose that a want of confidence in 
the perfection of received maxims must diminish a zeal for 
learning, they have only to refiect that it has never been 
given to man to know perfectly. Those who have done 
most for the advancement of science have been well 
aware that perfection was impossible ; and if this fact did 
not discourage them, neither may it those who are to 
follow in the same adventurous career. A boundless 
curiosity — a-o instinctive love of truth, has ever been one 
of the most sovereign principles of human nature. — 
Throughout the universe there seems to be an anxiety to 
know. What is seen is so majestic, and what is myster- 
ious is so wonderful, that both angels and men " desire to 
look into things" which yet lie concealed from then- intel- 
lectual vision. 

Ail that is requisite under these circumstances is to be 
at the post of observation, holding on to the best estab- 
lished principles the age affords, with a full conviction that 
new and transcendent discoveries await us. Past achieve- 
ments, so far from lessening the probability of new 
success, present the strongest assurance that it is possible, 
and the most powerful inducement for its attainment. 
The advance of knowledge has already displaced many of 
the once honored, and once useful, fabrics of science, and 
given to the world a new system with the old name. And 
although we were more heedless of these unavoidable 



MOTITES. 201 

mutations than we are, they would not be intermitted to 
the reproachful apathy of unaspiring mind. It is our 
privilege and duty to co-operate with the manifest work- 
ings of Providence in the greater difiFusion of science ; and 
invited by the success of past inquiries, we should enter 
upon such original observations as have for their apprc- 
priato reward the certain, though it may be humble, 
assurance of augmenting the sum of knowledge. Having 
formerly shown that for this object our reliance must be 
upon self- education, we can present no stronger motive tc 
such an education than the fact that this result — the 
improvement of science, is not only practicable in itsel:, 
but even a necessary consequence of mental activity. 

7. Learning deranges the state of society by dostroyiug 
the natural equality of individuals ; and hence the culti- 
vation of the mind becomes indispensable as a means of 
self-preservation. To be ignorant, is to allow others more 
knowledge of us than we have of ourselves. It is to give 
them the same advantage over us, that one who can see 
has over one that is bhnd. Could we consent to part 
with our physical faculties and powers — the eyes, the ears, 
the hands or the feet, we should be no more helpless nor 
fooHsh than he who suffers his mind to be uncultivated. 
Science is an inexhaustible source of felicity and powt r 
to mankind ; and prosperity is little more than a name tor 
the practical application of knowledge to the aifairs ot 
life. What do we require to combat disease, to gain 
wealth, or to expound the laws of natvxre, but more 
knowledge ? The unlearned, if it is their fortune to Jive 
among the intelligent, are as imbecile and dependent as 
children, continually liable to all sorts of impostures, and 
suffiering without the possibility of avenging injuries. 
Among society of their own grade, nature would assume 
the control, and as she has not given to lions and tigers, 

m 



202 SELF EDUCATION. 

guns and swords, so she would not permit savage rusticity 
to arm itself with the tremendous power of science. 
Should it be thought that the great diversity of trades - 
and sciences leaves even the learned obnoxious to this- 
species of abuse, we have only to say that acquiescence on 
their part must be voluntary, as they have the means 
both of detection and redress in their own hands. Why 
has one nation despoiled another, and why has political, 
pecuniary and social depression afflicted large majorities of 
mankind in every age ? Is it: not because ignorance - 
disqualifies for high pursuits-— dwarfs the affections, dims 
the eye and paralyzes the arm, reducing to vassalage those 
whom nature meant to be free? It is by ignorance that 
oppression is upheld. Let light in upon the public mind, 
and the most reckless despot dare not move. It was only 
under the oover of darkness that he ventured to approach 
his victim, and it is only while that covering shields him 
from observation that he has power to inflict the wrong. 
The acquisition of knowledge is therefore a . dictate of 
necessity, and can not be neglected by any who are not 
equally regardless of duty and of safety. Submission or 
intelligence is inevitable ; and those who fail of the latter, 
will not. escape the former. 

8, This system- aflforda- the only real greatness. Minds 
which never arrive at majority, can never do more than 
to follow established usages. They learn what others 
have learned, and do what others have done ; but this is a 
task that confers no distinction, because it evinces no 
capacity, or none that deserves to be noticed. It is by 
the performance of acts which require original talent that 
character is shown, and that character is formed. Such 
as tamely follow a leading mind have nothing that can be 
called their own; they drift along with the current of 
other people's thouglits, too inactive to think for them- 



MOTIVES. 20SS 

selves and too unaspiring to attempt any thing new. 
What Dr. Aikin has observed in reference to some who 
fill important stations in society, is not less applicable to 
many who pass for learned men. " The great affairs of 
the world are frefiuently conducted by persons who have' 
no other title to distinction than merely as associated with 
these affairs. With abilities not at all superior to those of 
a clerk in an ofi&ce, or a subaltern in a regiment, the civil 
and military concerns of great nations are often managed 
according to a regular routine, by men whom chance of 
birth alone has elevated to high stations. Such charac- 
ters appear in history with a oonsefj[uence not really 
belonging to them ; and it seems the duty of a biographer 
in these cases to detach the man from his station, and 
cither entirely to omit, or reduce to a very slight notice, 
the memorial of one whose personal qualities had no real 
influence, over the events of his age, and afford nothing; 
to admire or to imitate."* 

However great the powers of the mind may be, they 
can only dcvolope themselves to our view by their acts ; 
where these' acts, by which alone our judgment is to be 
determined, bespeak nothing original — nothing but abso- 
lute dependence and blind obsequiousness, we justly 
conclude either that there is no talent or that none has 
been employed. Now, as talent can not be known even 
to its possessor except by this practical application, and 
as what we attempt must STer bear some proportion to 
the estimate we place upon our abilities, the beneficial 
tendency of a system calculated to elicit these powers in 
the highest degree becomes fully apparent. The individu- 
al learns the measure of his strength, and aims at objects 
great enough to occupy that strength ; but left to ignor- 
ance of himself, his powers are sure to be wasted Hpon? 

* Memoir of John Aikin, p. 112. 



204 SELP EDUCATION. 

puerilities. He may glide along the beaten path of 
science, but it is with a mean servility that provokes only 
contempt ; he creeps where he ought to walk, and bows 
where he ought to stand erect. He divests mind of its 
prerogatives and sinks it to the level of matter; receives 
direction from everything and gives direction to nothing. 
" No business or study," says Dr. Channing, " which does 
not present obstacles, tasking to the full, the intellect and 
the will, is worthy of a man. In science, he who does not 
grapple with hard questions, who does not concentrate his 
whole intellect in vigorous attention, who does not aim to 
penetrate what at first repels him, will never attain to 
:nental force." This assertion is sa perfectly in accord- 
ance with the laws of mind and the history of intellectual 
character, that we can not but wonder how any should 
have been so far mistaken as to hope for excellence by 
other means, or as to deem the obstacles to self- education 
real disadvantages. 

9. A generous nature will not only aim to possess real 
greatness, but also to diffuse it. This can best be 
accomplished by the influence of example, as one successful 
instance settles the question of practicability in favor of 
all who wish to repeat the attempt. "We need only to 
know what others have done to feel a sort of compulsion 
to do at least as much. Men are both imitative and 
sympathetic, hence, a brilliant example never fails of 
extensive effect. All see that what has been done, can 
be done ; all feel that what may be done, should be done. 
It is thus that such a literary character as Shakspeare, 
has infused hope into myriads of minds that might other- 
wise have sunk in despondency. The man who was to 
stand at the head of English literature was not to be a, 
cloistered student of Oxford or of Cambridge. This 
honor was reserved for one who owed nothing to colleges, 



MOTIVES. 205 

or to college studies — for one who, in the graphic lan- 
guage of Ben Jonson, " had small Latin and less Greek," 
and whose only school was the theatre. The genius of 
learning passed by the polyglots of that age and devolved 
this higli distinction upon one of the lowest pretensions, 
and, apparently, in the most unpropitious circumstances — 
upon a servant boy, without science, and without assist- 
ance. Every example of this kind inspires confidence in 
those who arc denied the usual advantages for improvement, 
As soon as they perceive that it is not unreasonable to 
hope for the highest excellence, they become conscious 
that their exertions can not be in vain, 

10. Probably there is not among all the motives to 
self-education a stronger one than the wish to be exactly 
free. This native, irrepressible desire stimulates us to 
constant activity. It is under the excitement, or rather, 
the restless anxiety, produced by such a state of mind, 
that the soul acquires its mastery over opposing circum- 
stances. 

" The fixed and noble mind 
Turns all occurrence to its own advantage." 

This unalterable purpose often gives to the very slightest 
means the greatest efficiency. Powers never deemed 
equal to high achievement suddenly assume control, 
and nothing is able to impede the progress of him who 
seems to be helped by nothing. The individual, in such 
cases, is not without help ; but being without the usual 
help, he is supposed to have none. His success arises 
from the force of application. To use a mechanical 
phrase, it is the increased momentum with which the 
obstacles before him are assailed, that makes them yield 
to such naturally feeble means. Mr. Mudie says, that a 
single thread of a spider's web, might be made to move 



ii06 SELF BDTJOATION. 

fast enough to cleave the earth asunder.* Now although, 
this is somewhat extravagant, and like the infinite divisi- 
J>iHty of n^atter, deserves to rank with scholastic fictions, 
yetdt is undoubtedly true that the slender means in the 
hands of every youth, may be applied with suflBcicnt force 
to overcome all difficulties in the way of his advance- 
ment. When difficulties have thus been overcome solely 
by dint of application, there remains a much more com- 
plete sense of independence tban if th^ work had been 
efi'ected by the help of accumulated facilitieSc 

* " Soft iron can be raade to move so rapidly as not only to cut 
the hardest steel as freely as a steel saw cuts soft timber, but it 
•can be made to burn the steel as easily as if that were the most 
inflammable of substances. The purest water oi the brooks and 
streams wears away their channels ; and the winds which are but 
the thin air in motion, level the abodes of man with the earth, 
and sweep the productions of the earth into the sea : nor is there 
the least doubt that if a spider's thread of sufficient length, and 
no thicker than those threads generally are, could be borne 
onward against the globe v/ith sufficient velocity, it would cleave 
the globe asunder, more easily, and in less time than the arrow of 
Tell cleft the apple on the head of Jiis son," Popular Guide to 
the Observation of Nature, p. 127. 



CHAPTER IX. 

Mental Characteristics demanded by 
tlie Enterprise. 

Having shown that self- education is both a solid and a 
practicable attainment, I shall designate some of the traits 
of mental character, on which its acq^uisition depend. 

1. The first undoubtedly is, such a love of study as 
leads to an industrious application. For, although every 
mind has capacity enough to know uU "that can be known, 
and has actually learned numberless' truths equal in 
importance to any which it still has to learn, yet every 
mind has not sufficient industry to acquire all that is 
within its reach. A considerable part of knowledge is 
spontaneous and inevitable, but the balance depends upon 
a voluntary application of powers which many are never 
inclined to devote to that object. 

2. The nest requisite is firmness of purpose. There 
must be an unalterable purpose to have an education or 
every thing is uncertain. When this determination is 
properly fixed in the mind, there need be no fear, except 
in a contest with divine Providence — and Providence itself 
often yields to an uncompromising sense of want. Any 
resolution of this kind is unknown to the mass of man- 
kind, hence, they are not to be entrusted with the busi- 
ness of self- education. Change our opinion we may, if at 
any time it shall appear that the reasons on which it was 
founded no longer exist. But when will the aspirations 
for immortality which lead to literary consecration yanigli 



208 SELF EDUCATION. 

from the human mind? It is generally deemed advisable 
not to engage in pursuits without a fair probability of 
success, but here vre fling probabiUties to the wind, as 
there is no retreat without worse disaster than can 
possibly attend perseverance. The fact is, when the mind 
first determines upon this enterprise, it is influenced by 
higher considerations than can ever be brought to bear 
upon its relinquishment. Education, like religion, is a 
privilege and a blessing, not to be foregone, even by the 
consent and with the advice of the pubhc. 

Firmness is indeed necessary to respectabihty of char- 
acter as well as to practical efiiciency ; and the individual 
who lacks this important quality is unfitted for any 
arduous service, and peculiarly so for that now under 
consideration. "A man without decision can never be 
said to belong to himself; since, if he dared to assert that 
he did, the puny force of some cause, about as powerful, 
you would have supj)osed, as a spider, may make a 
capture of the hapless boaster the very next moment, and 
triumphantly exhibit the futility of the determinations by 
which he was to have proved the independence of his 
understanding and his will. He belongs to whatever can 
seize him ; and innumerable things do actually verify their 
claim on him and arrest him as he tries to go along ; as 
twigs and chips, floating near the edge of a river, are 
intercepted by every weed, and whirled in every little 
eddy. Having concluded on a design, he may pledge 
himself to it, — if the hundred diversities of feeling which 
may come within the week, will let him. As his character 
precludes all foresight of his conduct, he may sit and 
wonder what form or direction his views and actions are 
destined to take to-morrow; as a farmer has often to 
acknowledge the next day's proceedings are at the dispos- 
al of its winda and clouds. 



CUARACTEBISTICS. 209 

" This man's opinions and determinations alwaj^s de- 
pend very much ou other human beings ; and what chance 
fur stability, while the persons with whom he may 
converse, or transact, are so various ? This very evening 
he may talk with a man whoso sentiments will melt away 
the present form and outline of his purposes, however firm 
and defined he may have fancied them to be. A succes- 
sion of persons whose faculties were stronger than his 
own, might, in spite of his irresolute reaction, take him 
and dispose of him as they pleased. An infirm character 
practically confesses itself made for subjection, and the 
man so constituted passes, like a slave, from owner to 
owner. 

"It is inevitable that the regulation of every man's 
plan must greatly depend on the course of events which 
come in an order not to be foreseen or prevented. But in 
accomodating the plans of conduct to the train of event?, 
the difference between two men may be no less than that, 
in the one instance the man is subservient to the events, 
and in the other, the events are made subservient to the 
man. Some men seem to have been taken along by a 
succession of events, and, as it were, handed forward in 
quiet passivencss from one to another ; without an} 
determined principle in their own characters, by which 
they couhl constrain those events to serve a design formed 
antecedently to them, or apparently in defiance of them. 
The events seized them as a neutral material, not they the 
events. Others, advancing through life, with an internal 
invincible determination of mind, have seemed to make 
the train of circumstances, whatever they were, conduce 
as much to their chief design as if they had taken place 
on purpose. It is wonderful how even the apparent 
casualties of life seem to bow to a spirit that will not 
bow to them, and yield to assist a design after having in 
vain attempted to frustrate it. 



210 tmj-B EDUCATIOI?. 

"Another advantage of this character is, that it 
exempts from a great deal of interference and persecution 
to which an irresolute man is subjected. Weakness in 
every form tempts arrogance ; and a man may be allowed 
to wish for a kind of character with which stupidity and 
impertinence may not make so free. When a decisive 
spirit is recognized, it is curious to see how the space 
.clears around a man, and leaves him room and freedom. 
This disposition to interrogate, dictate, or banter, pre- 
serves a respectful and politic distance, judging it not 
unwise to keep the peace with a person of so much 
energy. A conviction that he understands and that he 
wills with extraordinary force, sUences the conceit that 
intended to perplex or instruct him, and intimidates the 
malice that was disposed to attack him. There is a 
.feeling, as in respect to fate, th^at the decrees of so inflex- 
ible a spirit jnust be right, or that, at least, they will be 
accomplished."* 

3. Another characteristical endowment is, a conscious- 
ness of intellectual ability. Those who may wish for 
authority in support of a sentiment like this are referred 
to the biographies of eminent men. But those who are 
candid and fearless enough to admit what passes within 
them, and have sufficient stamina to promise success in 
■the hardy enterprise of self-education, can cheerfully 
attest the correctness of this position. This peculiarity 
is thus noticed by Dr. Johnson, in reference to two of -the 
most distinguished English poets, Pope and Milton. — 
" Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertak- 
ings. He, indeed, who forms his opinion of himself in 
solitude without knowing the powers of other men, is very 
liable to error ; but it was the felicity of Pope to rate 

* Foster on Decision of Character. Letter 1. 



CHARACTERISTICS. '211 

himself at hig real value."* Of Milton he says : " It 
appears in all his writings that he had the usual concomi- 
tant of gi'eat abilities, a lofty and steady confidence in 
himself." "In this book (a work on Prelacy) he dis- 
covers, not with ostentatious exultation, but with calm 
confidence, his high opinion of his own powers ; and 
promises to undertake something, he yet knows not wliat, 
that maybe of use and honor to his country. ' Thie,' 
says he, ' is not to be obtained but by devout prayer to 
that eternal Spirit that can enrich with all utterance and 
knowledge, and sends out his seraphim with the hallowed 
fire of his altar, to touch and purify the Hps of whom he 
pleases. To this must be added, industrious and select 
reading, -steady observation, and insight into all seemly 
and generous arts and afi"airs ; till which in some measure 
be compassed, I refuse not to sustain this expectation.' 
Erom a promise like this, at once fervid, pious, and 
rational, might be expected the Paradise Lost."t Indeed 
they who undertake to do without assistance what other-s 
have found a hard task when aided by every possible 
help, may well be pardoned some reliance upon the vigor 
of their own understandings. How early this feeling of 
confidence devclopes itself, is matter of conjecture, but 
probably it is coeval with the formation of the adjunct 
.peculiarities that enter into the constitution of great 
■minds. This confidence enabled Columbus to adhere to 
his conclusions and plans — to defend them, and secure 
patronage to complete the most hazardous voyage ever 
undertaken. Numerous instances might be adduced 
where a consciousness of ability and of the rectitude of 
his proceedings, has remained to the abettor of noble 

* Life of Pope, 
t Life of Milton. 



212 SELF EDUCATION. 

enterprises, as his cliief support amid the treachery and 
imbecility of surrounding contemporaries. 

4. A willingness to engage in difficult and dangerous 
a,ttempts, or high mental courage, is the nest attribute of 
a mind adapted to the exigences of this pursuit. If the 
derision with which pride and insolence never fail to treat 
those who are below them in external advantages, has any 
ten'ors to the aspiring mind, there is little hope of success. 
If we grant, for the sake of the argument, that there will 
be a competition between the self-educated and the college 
graduate, wiU it tend to the disparagement of the former ? 
Certainly not. The whole strife must be upon grounds 
not before occupied by either party, for who disputes 
about the elements of knowledge that are taught in 
schools? He who fears to advocate the truth merely 
because the battery of formal criticism will be opened 
upon him, may properly be excused from taking any part 
in the service of mankind. Such a timidity shrinks from 
the path of duty and would shackle efPeetually the most 
.finished scholar. The literati inflict upon each other the 
most caustic reviews and criticisms. Longinus says, that 
the blemishes of the best Greek writers — and the Greek 
writers are reputed the best in the world — greatly exceed 
their beauties. " If any one should pick out the slips of 
Homer, Demosthenes, Plato, and the other consummate 
authors, and put them together, the instances in which 
those heroes of fine writing have attained to absolute 
perfection would be found to bear a very small, nay, an 
indefinitely small, proportion to them."* Nor is there 
any reason why irregularity in education should furnish a 
sanctuary for mistakes. 

Self- education is not necessarily imperfect, and the 

* On the Sublime, sec. 36. 



CUARACTJSRISTICS. 2l3 

reproach and suspicion with which it staiuls connected in 
the minds of some, have arisen from weak and superficial 
attempts, or from an utter want of judgment and taste 
which is so characteristic of a few who have had the entire 
control of their own education. What if a few have 
been justly chastised for carelessness, and censured for 
palpable faults ? shall we refrain from making a declara- 
tion of our sentiments for no other reason than this — 
that obvious litcrai'y abuses can not be tolerated? It 
would be better to take the course of the celebrated John 
Howard, who, not understanding the grammar of his 
naiivc language as fully as was desirable, employed a 
more competent hand to revise his Avorks before they went 
to the press,* It is far more difficult to ac({uire senti- 
ments and truths that shall deserve publicity, than to 
clothe tliem in appropriate diction. Yet it must ])e 
acknowledged that they who have not industr}- enough to 
learn to write, are not likely either to form valuable 
conclusions, or make new and useful discoveries. 

Literary efforts although entirely useless in themselves 
tend to the formation of habits decisive of future emi- 
nence. t Aud to discourage juvenile efforts for fear of a 
drawback upon the popularity of after life, evinces no 
particular discernment. There is a sort of apprenticeship 
in great business as well as small, in which to look for 
perfect efibrts is a violation of common sense. Those, 

* Sec Life of Howard, by Dr. Aikin. 

t I am happy to corroborate this remark as well as to extend its 
application somewhat by the following. " An author will seldom 
find cause to regret the time and labor which he may liave 
bestowed upon an abortive or unsuccessful work, provided he has 
applied to it, during its progress, the full force of his mind. Such 
essays serve to root deeply in the mind ideas which afterwards 
spring up with renewed vigor and beauty, and in a more propw 
tious season mature their fruits." Aikin's Memoirs, p. 111. 



2T4 SELF EDUCATION. 

therefore, wlio would be so cautious as never to err, are • 
left to the sad alternative of never beginning. 

Nothing can be more certainly destructive- of- all the 
possibilities of improvement than this excessive and 
needless fear. " An heroic mind is more wanted in the 
library or the studio than in the field. It is wealth and 
cowardice which extinguish the light of genius and dig 
the grave of literature as- of nations."* There can be no 
excellence where there is not originality, and there can be 
no originality where there is not independence. Nor is 
there the danger in putting forth new exertions which 
many have supposed. It is commonly imagined that 
great geniuses hazard their reputation by every subse- 
quent effort, but it would be difficult to assign any 
sufficient reason for an assumption of this kind. Unless 
the intellect exhausts itself by its labors, of which there 
is not the least evidence, we see not why its' successive 
productions may not- possess the same intrinsic excellence. 

5. In the mind of every successful student literature 
and science are made an integral part of the leading 
enterprise-. No man was ever learned by chance. — 
Attainments of this kind are the result of industry 
directed to a specific object, whether that object be a- 
livelihood, the establishment of important principles, or 
competency in any of the professions. When the impor- 
tance of science is duly recognized, it no longer ranks as 
a mere contingency ; the individual pays the same atten- 
tion to his studies as. to his other pursuits. Learning, 
once regarded as necessary, ceases to depend upon 
convenience, and is reached like any other indispensable 
object without reference to time or money. What we 
must have, we rarely fail to obtain. This accounts for 

* Blackwood's Magazine, January, 1845. 



CHARACTERISTICS. 215 

the Gstraordinary acquisitions of some eminent men — 
their purpose carried with it a necessity for just such 
acquirements. Dr. "Webster after he had concluded to 
write his American Dictionary, spent ten years in prepa- 
ratory studies, although he was at that time one of the 
most accomplished and profound scholars. During this 
period he acquired a competent knowledge of twenty 
foreign languages. Now if this accession of knowledge 
had not been rendered necessary by the part which the 
great lexicographer had assigned to himself, and if thai 
necessity had not been felt in his own mind, he would 
never have grasped at these vast literary treasures. 
Those who think to serve either the public or themselves 
efficiently without science, give us no reason to believe 
they will ever obtain an education, and our conviction of 
the futility of their casual studies should not be withheld- 
from their knowledge. 

These are among the more obvious peculiarities of mind 
demanded by literary and scientiffc pursuits. Wo have 
not enumerated genius as one of these requisites, because 
its existence, beyond what is implied in the qualities- 
here specified, is not essential to success. He who loves 
an enterprize, who resolves to accomplish it, who dares -to 
meet every danger which it involves, and who makes his • 
arrangements accordingly, can never be defeated. These 
energies if not genius, are at least equivalent to genius ; 
they secure the desired result \\'ith as much certainty, if. 
p.ot with as much facility. 



CHAPTER X. 
Errors of Self Education. 

It is a fact not to be disguised that self-education has 
been regarded as peculiarly and hopelessly defective ; its 
character for error is such that those who claim to fix the 
meaning of language would withhold from it the very 
name of education. But a Httle attention will place this 
subject in a different light — in a light so different that 
the alledged imperfection will be found to be a positive 
excellence. 

The errors charged upon self-education consist chiefly 
in violating some of the minor rules of criticism. Yet 
the observance of such rules is utterly impossible to a 
work of genius. Self-education is an original work, and 
must have all the peculiarities of an original work. The 
critics have undertaken a task which they can never 
execute. They would give laws to language and laws 
to mind ; but they can not do either without destroying 
what they attempt to improve. Wherever theirauthority 
is acknowledged as paramount, there genius dies and 
improvement ends. The effect of their labors has never 
been more complete than in France and never more disas- 
trous. Dr. Campbell, having noticed the absurdities 
which, in our ov/n language, have resulted from this 
volunteer service says : " The French critics, and even the 
academy, have proceeded, if not always in the same 
manner, on much the same principle in the improvements 
they have made on their language. They have indeed 



ERRORS. 217 

cleared it of many, not of all their low iilioms, cant 
phrases, and useless anomalies; they have rendered tho 
style in the main more perspicuous, more grammatical, 
and more precise than it was before. But they have not 
known where to stop. Their criticisms often degenerate 
into refinements, and every thing is carried to excess. If 
one mode of construction, or form of expression, hath 
been lucky enough to please these arbitrators of the 
public taste, and to obtain their sanction, no different 
mode or form must expect so much as a toleration. What 
is the consecjuence ? They have purified their language ; 
at the same time they have impoverished it, and have, in 
a considerable measure reduced all kinds of composition 
to a tasteless uniformity. Accordingly, in perhaps no 
language, ancient or modern, will you find so little variety 
of expression in the various kinds of writing, as in the 
French. In prose or verse, in philosophy and romance, 
in tragedy and comedy, in epic and pastoral, the difference 
may be very great in the sentiments, but it is nothing, or 
next to nothing, in the style." Well and sternly does he 
add, " Is this insipid sameness to be envied them as an 
excellence ? Or shall we Britons, who are lovers of 
freedom almost to idolatry, voluntarily hamper ourselves 
in the trammels of the French academy V"* 

Here then we see what criticism can do for the 
perfection of languages. It can pervert and destroy, 
biit it can not improve them. The languages of G-rceee 
and Rome were excellent, but they attained their excel- 
lence, and all their excellence, before the critics lent their 
assistance. The languages of these nations rose and 
declined with their virtues, and philology had nothing to 
do with their origin or continuance. But the whole 

* Philosophy of Rhetoric, B. 3, chap. 4, Sec. 2. 
n 



218 SELF EDUCATION. 

subject derives its greatest light from the fact that words 
are only representatives of ideas. G-rammar and rhetoric 
belong to thought, they exist in the thought before they 
are transferred to words. Hence the operations of the 
critic should be directed to mind rather than to language. 
He should teach us how to shape our ideas, as ideas must 
determine both the character and arrangement of words. 
The author to whom we have just referred, makes a 
distinction between rhetoric and grammar, the correctness 
of which we are not able to perceive. He thinks the 
former is a natural and the latter an artificial method. 
" From all the examples above quoted, those especially 
taken from holy writ, the learned reader, after comparing 
them carefully,, both with the original, and with the 
translations cited in the margin, will be enabled to deduce, 
with as much certainty as the nature of the question 
admits that that arrangement which I call rhetorical, as 
contributing to vivacity and animation, is, in the strictest 
sense of the word, agreeably to what hath been already 
suggested, a natural arrangement ; that the principle 
which leads to it operates similarly on every people, and 
in every language, though it is much more checked by 
the idiom of some tongues than by that of others ; that,, 
on the contrary, the more common, and what for distinc- 
tion's sake I shall call the grammatical order, is, in a 
great measure, an arrangement of convention, and differs 
considerably in different languages. He will discover, 
also, that to render the conventional or artificial arrange- 
ment, as it were, sacred and inviolable, by representing 
every deviation (whatever be the. subject, whatever be 
the design of the work,) as a trespass against the laws of 
composition in the language, is one of the most effectual 
ways of stinting the powers of elocution, and even of 
damping the vigor both of imagination and of passion. 



ERRORS. 219 

I observe this the rather, that, in my ai^prehension, the 
criticism that prevails amongst us at present leans too 
much this way."* This is most certainly a dostinction 
without a (lifFerence. These hindred sciences are so 
interwoven with caoh other and the relation which they 
hold to language is so similar as to make it altogether 
improbable that they should not have a common origin. 
They are constituent principles of speech and without 
them language, whether written or spoken, can not exist — • 
can not, because it would cease to represent things. We 
have no evidence that any, even the most unimportant 
part of language is the work of man, and whenever he 
has attempted to improve this production of nature, his 
efforts have necessarily im.paired what had otherwise 
been perfect.! 

It follows therefore that those faults which are alledged 
against self-education, are only traits of independent 
genius — mere varieties of nature, and inseparable from 
original achievement. This conclusion is strengthened 
not a little by the remarkable fact tliat no eminent writer 
has ever paid the least attention to what may be called 

* B. 3, chap. 3, Sec. 2. 

t " All languages whatever, even the most barbarous, as far 
as hath )'et appeared, are of a regular and analogical make." 
Philosophy of Rhetoric, B. 2, Cliap. 7, Sec. 1. 

"If language is a human invention, it was the invention of 
savage man, and this creation of barbarism would be a higher 
trophy to human power than any achievement of civilization. 
The study of the rudest dialects tends to prove, if it does not 
conclusively prove, that it was not man who made language, but 
he who made man gave him utterance." Bancroft's History, vol. 
3, p. 2G8. 

Language even in its most uncultivated state has an organism 
too perfect to require or to admit of any essential service from 
human sagacity. 



220 SELF EDUCATIOlSr, 

the critical code. Every great writer has followed his 
own taste and judgment, to the neglect of all rules and 
all authorities, except so far as they may incidentally have 
been a matter of convenience. Nor has this refusal to 
take the advice of critics abated in any degree the fame 
or the usefulness of these authors. Who reads Dr. 
Johnson the less because his style has been severely 
censured? or, who for this reason will lay aside the 
volumes of Jonathan Edwards ?* when will Locke or 
Shakspeare become as obsolete as some of their phrases ? 
or in other words, when will they be rejected out of 
veeard to the laws of style ? As none of these valuable 
writers, nor any like them, will ever be the less esteemed 
for such defects, — if defects they be, — it follows that the 
authority of criticism is merely nominal; that it never 
had, and never can have, any real influence upon the 
destiny of genius. 

There is another class of errors having their origin, not 
in constitutional peculiarities, but in a divergence from 
the common path of information. Not unfrequently is 
the self-educated man obliged to glean his knowledge from 
sources wholly unknown to the ordinary student. — 

* " It is well known that the high character and exten&ive 
circulation of his writings have not arisen, as in some other cases, 
from any thing peculiarly attractive in their style. To this point 
he- never seems especially in early life, to have directed particular 
attention. Intent only on his weighty and important thoughts, 
he was not solicitous about the dress in which they were presented. 
Hence his style is circuitous, sometimes tedious, never elegant, 
and often loaded and perplexed. Both his choice and his arrange- 
ment of terms is frequently untasteful ; he repeats the same words 
and phrases in the same paragraph again and again, without 
scruple ; he is in a great measure regardless, both of euphony 
and harmony of diction ; and the result of the whole is, in many 
cases, less distinct and impressive than is desirable." Dr. Miller's 
Life of Edwards. (Spark's American Biography, vol. 8, p. 215.) 



ERRORS. 221 

Whether this necessity is upon the whole any disadvan- 
tage is another question altogether, but if after being 
educated in this manner he is to be tried by the common 
standard of attainments, he will no doubt appear deficient. 
And who would not ? It is no way probable that Homer 
had the knowledge necessary to an examination in one 
of our modern schools. Demosthenes and Cicero united 
could not have answered half the questions in one of our 
works on elocution. Hannibal knew nothing of tactics, 
nor Archimedes of mathematics, compared with a student 
at West Point, Bacon was no philosopher if the lessons 
of the present day are made the standard, and Chester- 
field would be taken for a clown by a modern petit maitre. 
Such are the absurdities which inevitably result from the 
assumption that education depends upon a particular class 
of studies. We therefore conclude that a person who is 
really ignorant of many things embraced in the popular 
system of instruction, may still be justly considered as 
educated. Among this class of errors are to be ranked 
certain mistakes in the use of language — mistakes which 
no more prove that their authors are uneducated than the 
imperfect efforts of a foreigner to speak our language 
prove that he is illiterate. Terms familiar to those who 
have read one author may be wholly unknown to those 
whose reading has been confined to other authors. For 
this reason a person of no inferior knowledge might 
confound Ptolemy the geographer with Ptolemy king of 
Egypt, or regard Cicero and Tully as difi'erent individuals. 
In a letter to lord Montagu, Sir Walter Scott mentions a 
similar blunder committed by the Ettrick Shepherd. 
"Hogg is here busy with his Jacobite songs. I wish he 
may get handsomely through, for he is profoundly ignor- 
ant of history, and it is an awkward thing to read in 
rder that you may wiite, I give him all the help I can, 



222 SELF EDUCATION. 

but he sometimes poses me. For instance, he cSme 
yesterday, open mouth, inquiring what great dignified 
clergyman had distinguished himself at Killiecrankie — not 
exactly the scene where one would have expected a 
churchman to shine — and I found, with some difiiculty, 
that he had mistaken Major-G-eneral Canon, called, in 
Kennedy's Latin song, Canonicus Gallovidiensis, for the 
canon of a cathedral."* There is a passage often quoted 
from Dr. Johnson, which I believe no one would be likely 
■to understand without reading it in its original connection. 
*' That man is little to be envied, whose patriotism would 
not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or whose 
piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona."t 
The classic field of Marathon — known wherever any 
thing of Grecian history is known — is here associated, 
not with some equally celebrated spot of the Eastern 
world, but with one of the Western Isles of Scotland. 
We can not dispute the claims of lona, yet its compara- 
tive obscurity leaves the reader dependent upon the 
author's narrative for a full understanding of this allusion. 
For the same reason, and-to a much greater extent, all the 
merely technical terms of art and science, are unintelli- 
gible to those who have acquh-ed their knowledge by 
original observation without the use of scholastic forms. 
Roger Bacon, whatever may have been his skill in chem- 
istry, would not have recognized the substances with 
which he was famiHar, if their names had been rehearsed 
according to the new chemical nomenclature^ It is 
therefore somewhat worse than idle to alledge defects of 
this kind as proof of ignorance ; and it is even more 
ridiculous to offer them as evidence of a want of educa- 

» Lockharte'8 Life of Scott, vol. 4, p. 171. 
t Journey to the Western Islands. 



EKRORS. 223 

tion, fox* a person may be ignorant of a particular science, 
and yet not be uneducated. No one need cither be, or 
appear to bo, illiterate, because he has not made the circle 
of the sciences. Care should be taken to avoid the use 
of words which we do not understand, and if this is done, 
there will be no room for those blundei's so frequent 
among the superficial and the thoughtless. It detracts 
nothing from the merit of genius that its acquisitions are 
not universal. "No man," says Dr. Watts, "is obliged 
to learn every thing." Much less is it necessary to dip 
into every thing in order to acquire the character of a 
scholar. This character depends upon accuracy rathei- 
than extent; it consists of knowledge rather than of 
boundless knowledge. 

Still we do not mean to say that self- education has not 
its errors. The truth is, there is no education but what 
has its defects ; and if most of those charged upon self- 
educatiou may be referred to that xxnalterable law of 
nature, which gives rise to specific difi'erences, then tho 
admission of its errors is no concession of inferiority. — 
The assertion so often made in substance, — that self- 
education has nothing to lose by the most rigorous 
comparison with that which is furnished by the schools, — 
remains an established fact. Faults it has, but they are 
the faults of greatness. They are such faults as aro 
inseparable from intellectual exercise, unless in the low 
department of mere mnemonics. They are errors, in 
short, which can not be avoided without committing great- 
er ones. If the so called regular student is not subject 
to them, it is because he dare not think for himself. Ho 
sacrifices all the chances of eminence to an ignoble fear 
of violating the foolish rules that critics have instituted 
without any authority but their own caprices. It is 
observed by Dr, Campbell in the latter of the preceding 



224 SELF EDUCATION. 

quotations from him, tliat to treat all deviations from the 
acknowledged standard of grammatical accuracy as viola- 
tions of the laws of composition "is one of the most 
effectual ways of stinting the powers of elocution, and 
even of damping the vigor both of imagination and of 
passion." He had too sagacious a mind not to perceive 
that the master-pieces of ancient and modern literature 
were characterized by a freedom totally inconsistent with 
any great attention to such authority. He saw that they 
were pervaded by an ambition of higher escellence, and 
by an energy that could not brook unauthorized control. 
He saw also that wherever the meddling of criticism had 
Ijeen regarded, wherever its inferior suggestions had been 
followed to the neglect of original genius, there talent had 
invariably sunk to mediocrity and driveled in puerile 
imitations. Self- education may expose us to the censures 
of the critic ; but the obsequiousness too often contracted 
ia the schools makes us contemptible to men of sense. 
One precludes the approbation of the aristocracy of 
iearniug ; the other deprives us of the merit necessary to 
immortality. Therefore if there are errors in the former, 
there are still greater errors in the latter ; and if the one 
demands our utmost vigilance, the other demands a 
constant solicitude added to that vigilance. 

The evils arising from a predominence of criticism are 
Well expressed by an anonymous author. " There is a 
most grievous impediment to genius in later, or as we 
term them, more civilized times, from which in earlier ages 
it is wholly exempt. Criticism, public opinion, the dread 
of ridicule — then too often crush the strongest minds. 
The weight of former examples, the influence of early 
habits, the halo of long- established reputation, force 
original genius from the untrodden path of invention into 
the beaten one of imitation. Early talent feels itself 



ERRORS. 225 

overawed by the colossus which all the world adores ; it 
falls down and worshijjs, instead of conceiving. The 
dread of ridicule extinguishes originality in its birth. 
Immense is the incubus thus laid upon the eiforts of 
genius. It is the chief cause of the degradation of 
taste ; the artificial style, the want of original conception, 
by which the literature of old nations is invariably distin- 
guished. The early poet or painter who portrays what 
he feels or has seen, with no anxiety but to do so power- 
fully aud truly, is relieved of a load which crushes his 
subsequent compeers to the earth."* It is only in an 
enervated condition of the mind that the works of genius 
thus paralyze its powers. In a healthier state — when its 
faculties are unimi)aired by vice aud unembarassed by 
false direction, the influence of great example is altogeth- 
er salutary. Hence that decline to which the literature 
of old nations is subject, is an effect of dotage and proves 
that the public mind is no longer competent to distin- 
guished deeds. The genius that suffers itself to be 
crushed by " the weight of former examples" is only the 
feeble off- shoot of a greatness which neutralized unfavor- 
able influences and rose to higher eminence as it met with 
sterner toils. 

Although the rules of criticism which self- education 
disregards are futile aud of no authority whatever, yet 
there are certain general principles which enter into the 
composition of every work of genius. These the judi- 
cious critic recognizes as essential to mental integrity, but 
with the details of their application he never attempts to 
interfere. They are such principles as may be said to 
originate works of excellence as well as to pervade them ; 
they are prerequisites without which such works can not 

* Blackwood's Magazine, January, 1845. 



226 SELF EDUCATION. 

exist, and with wLicli tliey can not fail to exist. Longi- 
nus has given five directions for producing the sublime, 
but they are all clearly resolvaljle into the first two, which, 
accoidiog to his own admission are natural endowments. 
" Now, there are, if I may so express it, five very copious 
sources of the sublime, if we pre-suppose a talent for 
speaking, as a common foundation for these five sorts; 
and indeed without it, any thing whatever will avail but 
little. 

" I. The first and most potent of these is a felicitous 
boldness in the th-oughts, as I have laid down in my 
Essay on Xenophon. 

" II. The second is a capacity of intense, and enthusi- 
astic passion ; and these two constituents of the sublime, 
are for the most part the immediate gifts of nature, 
whereas the remaining sources depend also upon art. 

" III. The third consists in a skillful moulding of 
figures, which are two-fold, of sentiment and language, 

" IV. The fourth ig a noble and graceful manner of 
expression, which is, not only to select significant and 
elegant words, but also to adorn the style, and embellish 
by the assistance of tropes. 

"V. The fifth source of the sublime, which embraces 
all the preceding, is to construct the periods, with all 
possible dignity and grandeur."* 

Every reader will at once perceive that the third and 
fourth of these rules are as really founded upon the two 
preceding ones, as the fifth is upon them all united. 
This being the case, he who observes the first two can 
not violate the three following. Boldness of thought 
gives boldness of language, and intense feeling secures 
intense expression. Nor can these results be obtained by 

* Longinus on the Sublime, Sec, 8. 



ERRORS. 227 

any other means so perfectly. Most critics acknowledge 
the necessity of these fundamental principles, and then, 
with strange inconsistency, proceed to furnish a multitude 
of rules directly subversive of the freedom and energy 
which they had enjoined. It is this contradiction of 
himself that makes the labors of the critic contemptible.''' 
He would be respected and his efforts might be useful if 
confined to a simple notation of the circumstances under 
which the productions of genius take their rise. But 
consulted as an oracle — regarded as gravely dispensing a 
system of rules for the attainment of perfection, he sinks 
from the high character of a philosophical observer, to 
that lowest of intellectual objects — a literary mountebank. 
The independence in which self- education originates is 
peculiarly opposed to the success of such pretensions ; it 
compels men to think for themselves and consequently to 
despise that affected and impertinent supervision wliich 
would teach them how to think. And if it does not 
prevent mistakes in the application of their powers, it 
saves them at least from debasing their minds by mean- 
ness of purpose. 

* Pollok has well described this class of writcrf. 

'•' The critics, — some, but few. 
Were worthy men, and earned renown which had 
Immortal roots ; but most were weak and vile. 
And, as a cloudy swarm of summer flics. 
With angry iium and slender lance, beset 
The sides of some huge animal ; so did 
They buzz about the illustrious man, and fain, 
With his immortal honor, down the stream 
Of fame would have descended ; but, alas ! 
The hand of time drove them away. They wcic. 
Indeed, a simple race of men, who had 
One only art, which taught them still to say, 
Whate'er was done might have been better done ;'' — 

Course of Time, B. 8. 



CHAPTER XL 

Scientilic and Artistic Rules. 

No doubt the clamorous and impotent criticism wliich 
we have noticed ia the previous chapter, derives its 
importance from the supposed necessity of adhering to 
certain prescribed forms or rules in ou.r intellectual efforts. 
Hence the critic is forever guided not by common sense 
and the nature of things — not by the inspiration of 
genius and the wide range of possibilities, but by arbitrary 
rules of his own creation. These canons are professedly 
estal}lished upon the works of genius ; they are pretended 
oracular responses given forth by the works of genius 
when put to the torture by the mere compiler. How 
completely worthless all such directions are will appear, if 
it can be shown that the productions of genius are 
spontaneous, and that the mind is self- directed on these 
occasions ; we shall then see that rules have no more to 
do with these efforts than they have with the vegetation 
of a plant or the glittering of a diamond. Several 
3ons]deratioUs tend to establish this view of the subject. - 

1. Many arts, and even sciences, are acquired at so 
early a period as effectually to preclude assistance of this 
kind. Children often learn to sing, not only without 
formal instruction, but before they are old enough to 
understand the nature of any rule whatever. Others 
have performed feats in the various branches of mathe- 
matics while ignorant of all rules and destitute of all 
assistance but the intuitive grasp of their own minds. 



RULES. 229 

la poetry tvc have abundant examples of a similar preco- 
city. Pope says of himself, 

" When yet a child, ere yet a fool to fame, 
I li?p'd in numbers, for the numbers came ;" 

and ho used to say that he could not remember the time 
when he began to make verses. 

2. In this respect, however, the first, and the last efforts 
of genius are alike. They are equally independent of 
the advantages •which arise from the labor of previous 
scholars. The classifications and systematic arrangements 
made by their predecessors may be of occasional conven- 
ience, but are never indispensably necessary. Linnaaus, 
without those classifications in Botany and Natural Histo- 
ry which have been so useful to all succeeding enquirers, 
was able to conduct his researches quite as successfully as 
more recent philosophers. No rules have ever been given, 
or ever can be given, for producing the higher works of 
art. The ability which produces these works, if not, as 
some suppose, directly the gift of God,* is at least the 
result of a cause over which the critic has no control. 
The resources of genius are within, not without. Its 
inherent power sets outward obstacles at defiance, and 
makes outward helps of trifling importance. The study 
of rules never made an artist or a scholar ; nor did the 
violation of rules ever render a work of genius essentially 
defective. We need no other proof of this, than the fact 

* '* Who taught Newton to ascertain the laws by which G.d 
governs the universe, through which discovery a new source of 
profit and pleasure has been opened to mankind through every 
part of the civilized world ? No reading, no study, no example, 
formed his genius. God, who made him, gave him that compass 
and bent of mind by which he made those discoveries, and foj. 
which his name is celebrated in the earth." Dr. A. Clarke^ 
(Theology, p. 338.) 



230 SELF EDUCATION. 

that many of the best produGtions originated before such 
rules had any existence. Writers succeed no better now 
than they did when these rules were wanting ; and those 
who disregard them do it with perfect impunity, if not 
with commendation.* Homer is not the less popular 
because he was ignoi-ant of them, nor is Shakspeare 
because he neglects them. The latter is especially 
recreant; he pays no regard to tho unities, often con- 
founds characters, and blends tragic with comic — faults 
which the most ordinary critic could have assured him 
would be fatal to his reputation ; but which, in fact, have 
never had the effect to make him other than the most 
popular of English writers. 

3. The same conclusion is reached by observing the 
order in which the rules of art and science take their rise. 
They derive their existence from works of art, and hence 
never precede such works in the order of time. Until 
some writer has given an example of elegant composition, 
there are no rules for fine writing ; until some philosopher 
has discovered a science, there can be no rules for teach- 
ing that science ; and until an artist has invented some 
art, all the rules of that art must be unknown, for with 
the knowledge of the art comes also the knowledge of its 
rules. Here then we see that both art and science may 
exist at any time, and must originally have existed, 
without method. Those systematic forms by which their 
acquisition has been supposed to be greatly facilitated are 

* " It 13 a great mortification to the vanity of man, that his 
utmost art and industry can never equal the meanest of nature's 
productions, eithor for beauty or value. Art is only the under- 
workman, and is employed to give a few strokes of embellishment 
to those pieces which come from the hand of a master. Some of 
the drapery may be of his drawing but he is not allowed to touch 
-the principal figure. Art may make a suit of clothes, but nature 
must produce a man." Hume's Essays: Vol. 2, Essay 15, p. 13L, 



RULES. 231 

often embaiTassments rather than helps. Our earliest 
knowledge is acf|uired without formal instruction, and 
tlierc is little doubt but the highest possible attainments 
of which we are capable are to be achieved in the same 
manner. 

4. It should be observed also, that genius is always in 
advance of the age ; it acts the part of a pioneer, urging 
its way forward to truths which the aggregate of society 
can not know till long afterwards. This priority of 
effort utterly excludes the facilities in question. Others, 
■who are to come after the first adventurer, may have 
guides, but he can have none. Alone, and perhaps 
contemned by those about him for his apparent reckless- 
ness, he passes on to realize the correctness of his own 
opinions, and to gain the reward of an unwavering, though 
solitary confidence. Columbus would never have discov- 
ered a new continent if he had waited till the popular 
geography gave assurance of its existence, or until the 
improvement of navigation had demonstrated the pracli- 
eability of such a voyage. lenner would never have 
announced his theory of vaccination to the world if he 
had waited till it was virtually comprehended in the 
science of medicine, or even till his best friends had 
sanctioned its publicity.* A genius thus in advance of 
his contemporaries must of necessity be like 

" Kncllcr, by Ilcav'n, and not a master taught, 
Whose art was nature and whose pictures tlioughl." 

Works of enduring fame are executed beyond the pro- 

* '■ It is not a little remarkable, that Mr. Hunter, like lenncr's 
friends at Alveston, thought so doubtingly of his views on vaccin- 
ation, that he cautioned him against publishing them, lest they 
should interfere with the fame he had acquired by his 'Essay on 
the Cuckoo.'" Distinguished Men of Modern Times. Vol. 2, 

p. a77. 



232 SELF EDUCATION. 

vince of human instruction; they speak of communings 
with a higher wisdom, and their authors seem to feel as if 
the injunction were addressed to them : " See that thou 
make all things according to the pattern showed thee in 
the mount." 

The reader will perceive how fully these observations 
establish a principle laid down in another part of this 
work — that we learn by practice, and not by the study 
of rules. 



CHAPTER XII. 
Schools. 

We have seen liow little dependent the human mind is 
on those systematic, forms which are designed to promote 
the acquisition of tlie arts and sciences ; even the master- . 
pieces of its aehievcment are the result of an inherent 
ability which needs no prompting and will admit of no 
control. This fact alfords at least presumptive evidence 
that there is nothing indispensable in the advantages of 
association — that the aids of supervision are as unneces- 
sary as the dictates of authority. Of this more direct 
proofs are not wanting. 

1. The intellect is not a planet reflecting only borrowed 
rays ; it is a sun shining by its own light. Its powers 
are original, not derived; natural, not acquired. This 
accounts for those splendid works which had tlieir origin 
almost in the dawn of human existence — for the pyramids 
of Egypt, the poems of Homer, and the Institutes of 
Menu. These are but instances of what the mind can 
accomplish whenever it pleases, without waiting for tlie 
benignant influence of schools to give it ability. Such 
works are an unfathomable mystery to those who regard 
scholastic facilities as essential to greatness. On this 
hypothesis all improvement must be slow, because the 
intellect having no resources within itself and being 
incapable of directing its own energies, can not become 
distinguished till assisted by the kindly oflSc-e of instruc- 
tion. But this notion is effectually refuted by the fact 



234 SELF EDUCATION. 

that the very earliest ages of the world abound with the 
highest productions of human genius. 

2. That intellectual capacity which elevates mankind 
above the need of precarious assistance, seems to consist 
in the power of thinking. The object of education is, 
not to learn the mind to think, but to make it think, and 
especially to direct its thoughtvS. G-reat thoughts are all 
that is necessary to improvement— they are improvement. 
What are the greatest inventions but conceptions of the 
mind which have been verified by experiment ? All that 
can be called great or good in the intellectual world, is 
but a mere record of thought. He that would excel, 
must, therefore, rely upon the workings of his own mind. 
Now it is well known that this process of the mind is in 
no way dependent on schools, whether high or low. 
These institutions do not discourage thinking, but they 
restrict it to pre-conceived opinions, thus esercising the 
memory rather than those faculties which are more 
immediately conducive to intellectual eminence. But 
even allowing that they encourage original thought, still-, 
this U a department of mental activity in which much 
assistance is neither practicable nor necessary, and that 
which may be afforded disappears in the grandeur of the 
final result. "As the lesser lights of heaven are paled 
in the surrounding effulgence of the sun, so the artifices 
of rhetoric become invisible amidst the splendor of sub-- 
lijne thoughts."* 

3. Another consideration of no small weight is, that 
the arts and sciences are the same everywhere. Lang- 
uage is the same in seclusion that it is in public ; the same 
ia school and out of school. Latin is Latin, and G-reek is 
G-reek in spite of times, places, or numbers. There is, 
therefore, no necessity for resorting to literary emporiums 

* LonginuSj sec. 17. 



HCHOOLS. 235 

as the standard of linguial excellence, since language 
maintains an unalterable identity, and is equally perfect 
however it may be acquii-ed. Pronunciation will be 
unknown to the solitary student, but it is no less imknown 
to the schools. That those who have the aid of schools 
may advance faster we shall not dispute, for this is not a 
question of facility, but only of possibility. Science will 
unfold its wonders with equal astonishment to the private 
learner; there arc no arcana into which he may not 
penetrate, no rules the neglect of which will invalidate 
his acquisitions. The rapturous exclamation of Archi- 
medes, and the overpowering emotions of Newton,* exhi- 
bit alike the joy of the lone seeker of truth and the 
imperishable nature of his discoveries. Science has not 
only its identity wherever found, but such an ubiquity as 
makes it to be found everywhere. It speaks out in the 
revelations of the telescope and of the microscope, in the 
animal and in the vegetable kingdoms, in the crust of the 
earth and in the firmament of heaven. All nature is 
great and redolent of truth to the philosophic mind. 
Such a mind can never be without lessons or instructors, 
for, like Shakspeare's Duke, it 

" Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, 
Sermons in stones, and good in every thing." 

4. " No body," says Locke, " ever went far m knowl- 
edge or became eminent in any of the sciences, by ih& 

* The demonstration of a particular problem having occurred 
to Archimedes while he was bathing, he was bo overjoyed that he 
leaped from the bath and ran through the streets of Syracuse, 
crying, ''I have found it ! I have found it !" It ia said that Sit 
Isaac Newton was so deeply affected wh«n he perceived that hw 
calculations were about to establish the doctrine of Gravitation, 
that another band had to finish the process. 



236 SELF EDUCATION. 

discipline aud constraint of a master."* That there is a 
great want of stronger motives in these institutions there 
can be no doubt in the minds of any who observe how 
little the majority of students profit by the advantages 
which they enjoy. That some make great proficiency 
varies not the case, for such would make proficiency^under 
any circumstances. It is not the fear of correction, nor 
the hope of reward within the institution, that stimulates 
them to industry ; nor yet is it a consciousness that such 
advantages are of short continuance, or that their studies 
can not be prosecuted elsewhere with success. These 
lesser motives undoubtedly have some influence, but the 
grand cause is the love of knowledge aud the desire of 
improvement. Where this is wanting, though there may 
be diligence enough to secure from censure and success 
enough to save from contempt, yet the higher elements of 
scholastic proficiency are absent, aud the individual must 
sink for want of influences which the schools can not 
supply. A student of this class may be something in 
school, in another place he would be nothing. If, then, 
the motives which alone are decisive of high attainments 
exist as fully with the private scholar as with any other, — 
if the mind gathers no higher — no unwonted inspiration 
in the halls of science, and if the abilities to be displayed 
in such institutions must be brought there, we may safely 
conclude that the human faculties have no radical connec- 
tion with such advantages and can not be paralyzed by 
the want of them. 

5. These institutions are circumscribed. The work of 
education begins with the first moments of conscious 
existence, and some of our most valuable acquisitions are 
made, not only before the period at which scholastic 
instruction usually begins, but even before the period to 

» Locke on Education, bcc. 94. 



sonoOLS. 237 

which memory is afterwards to extend. At this time wc 
learn to walk and to talk, to know our friends and to feel 
our wants. To these branches of knowledge which arc 
necessarily acquired before the schools lend their assist- 
ance, must lie added both collateral and subsequent 
acquirements : those which wc gain by other means while 
the schools are in progress, as the knowledge of business 
and of social life ; and those which we gain alter they 
have closed, as a knowledge of new sciences and a more 
profound acquaintance with such as had been previously 
studied. From the fact that these institxitions, however 
useful, do not propose to teach but a small part of what 
all must learn, we conclude that they are not essential to 
learning — that the mind is as competent to learn without 
their assistance what they propose to teach, as it certainly 
is to learn without such assistance what they do not 
propose to teach. That some can teach does not prove 
that others must be taught. 

6. Tt has been well remarked by Mrs. Farrar, that 
"where school education ends, there self-education must 
liegin."* This unavoidable necessity of ultimately prac- 
ticing on a different principle, shows clearly enough that 
there is something excellent in that only other way which 
is open to us. The method that must answer for all the 
great enterprises of maturer years, may, if adopted from 
necessity, prove very efficient in tho less difficult under- 
takings of juvenile life. But as self- education is the 
destiny of all who continne to improve — of some earlier, 
and of others later — we can not regard the common 
scholastic advantages as by any means complete. They 
are only introductory to the constitutional plan; they 
terminate in the method of naturfr— in self- direction. 

* See her excellent work on Female Education. 



238 SBLJ EDUCATIOW. 

7. Some degree of care is necessary tliat these advan- 
tages, wHcli are never absolutely requisite and must in 
all cases finally be laid aside, may not fail of accomplish- 
ing the good of which they are capable. Such institu- 
tions can be useful only while they recognize their own 
inferiority; they are the servants of mind and should 
never be allowed to usurp authority over it. Too often 
have they continued to teach exploded sciences ; too often 
have they persecuted those who had courage enough to 
think for themselves. These, and similar evils, are, in 
some measure, inseparable from the didactic system, and 
in order to retain it we shall occasionally be obliged to let 
dogmatism pass for science; but when this becomes a 
prevailing habit, when the teacher knows every thing and 
the scholar nothing, and when the thing that has been is 
the only thing that can be, then the system and its 
products are alike contemptible. To such a state of 
things the words of Cowper are appropriate. 

"The schools became a scene 
Of solemn farce, where ignorance in stilts, 
His cap well lined with logic not his own, 
With parrot tongue performed the scholar's part. 
Proceeding soon a graduated dunce." 

Perhaps the habit of repeating from year to year, and 
from age to age, exactly the same lessons, would be less 
stultifying if the proper, initial character of such studies 
were always kept prominently in view. This however is 
not the case, and the fact that one is a graduate, 
announces, not so much that he has begun his studies, as, 
that he has reached the acme of possible attainments. 
He has gained the farthest goal — his education is finished 
— he is a graduate. However useful college acquirements 
may be under other circumstances, where such an impres- 



SCHOOLS. 230 

fiion prevails they can only be regarded as a source of 
mischievous pedantry. 

8. The .schools are mostly confined to those branches 
of knowledge which are only of relative importance. Of 
this class are language and mathematics. This is gener- 
ally considered as one of the happiest arrangement.?, 
because these are the instruments by which the mine of 
knowledge is to be worked. But knowledge and the 
means of acquiring knowledge are things very different ; 
the latter derive all their consequence from the former, 
and should be esteemed of no importance, except when 
applied to their legitimate purpose. An education con- 
sisting chiefly of these relative attainments, must always 
be of very little advantage to its possessor until he has 
had time to make the necessary application of his newly 
acquired powers. Greek applied would give us the his- 
tory of Greece and whatever else of history or of scienco 
the language might develop ; but Greek unaj.phed gives 
us nothing save a useless collection of signs. Now, 
although we may not undervalue such acquisitions, yet 
they indicate sufficiently how imperfect that education 
must be which is confined to things of no independent 
value.* Another question meets us at this point, and is 
is one affecting the whole system of instruction. Under 
what circumstances are these relative studies most suc- 
cessfully pursued? As to language there can be no 
doubt but the schools have signally failed. By changing 

* " Though classical learning be the shilholeth by which we 
judge, generally speaking, of the proficiency of the youthful 
scholar, yet, when this has been too exclusively and pedant- 
ically impressed on his mind as the one thing needful, he 
very often finds he has entirely a new course of study to commence 
jUst at the time when life is opening all its busy or gay scenes 
before him, when study of any kind becomes irksome." 6,r 
Walter Scott ; (Life, vol. C, p. 59 ) 



240 SELP EDUCATION. 

their mode of instruction they might remedy this, but it 
is hardly probable that any change will be effected, as the 
general uselessness of dead languages affords no sufficient 
encouragement to cultivate the habit of speaking and 
writing them. With mathematics it is something differ- 
ent ; it is not so easy to separate this science from the 
objects to which it relates. Still, analogy would teach us 
that even mathematical acquisitions are rendered easier by 
the aid of practical application. It follows, therefore, 
that the means of knowledge are equally available to the 
private student, and that he loses nothing from that 
apparent want of preparation which characterizes his 
efforts. 

9. It should not be forge ttcii that literature reached its 
zenith long before colleges or universities had any exist- 
ence. At least that it did, is the opinion of those who so 
much admire the ancient classics. We need not now 
inquire into the causes which originated and polished the 
literature of Grreece and Eome ; the fact itself is indispu- 
table, and as to the cause or causes it is enongh to note 
the absence of that which is mainly relied on, in modern 
times, for the accomplishment of such an object. Nothing 
could more fully establish the incidental relation of 
these institutions to the progresss of knowledge and to 
the general subject of mental improvement. They do 
not appear important even as auxiliaries, but only as a 
contingent advantage which public zeal adopts from 
choice, not from necessity. 

10. The schools do, indeed, facilitate mental improve- 
ment. To deny this would be to insult the good sense of 
the age. It has not been my object to depreciate their 
excellence or to discourage the attendance of those who 
are able to avail themselves of such advantages. I have 
aimed to estimate, in view of the constitution of the 



SCHOOLS. 241 

mind and of the cliaractcr of these institutions, the value 
■which ought to be placed on them for educational purpos- 
es. This, of course, results in abridging certain extrava- 
gant claims vrhich, as they can never be maintained, 
should never bo asserted. No literary aristocracy, no 
intellectual caste can be established on so narrow a founda- 
tion as the schools supply; all real greatness is beyond 
the sphere of their operations, and dependent upon causes 
"wliich they are equally unable to originate or to control. 
Tlio aid which they aftord is undeniable ; but it is as 
manifestly of a very secondary character, and can be 
dispensed with, when necessity requires, without detriment 
to intellectual culture. We see them following in the 
train, not leading the march of improvement — humbly 
waiting to receive contributions of science from the hands 
of self- directed genius, and only capable of giving them 
an imperfect diffusion, without the hope of adding to their 
value. To make such institutions essentially necessary 
to education is to reverse all our ideas of human capabili- 
ty. Those who pride themselves upon distinctions of 
thi.5 kind, and who affect to luok down with pity or with 
contempt upon the solitary student as one cut off'" from 
all the means of improvement, and doomed to perpetual 
illiteracy — one that may never be classed with educated 
men, nor rise to respectable scholarship — are only to be 
pitied for their ostentatious ignorance ; for however much 
their acquisitions may rise above the common standard, 
they fall much farther below those exalted attainments 
which are possible to individual effort. 



CHAPTER Xin. 
Inventions and Discoveries* 

The various incidental obserTations ■which, in the course 
of this work, have been made on inventions and discov- 
eries, have by no means exhausted the subject. And as it 
is a department of inquiry that from the nature of the 
ease, falls wholly within the province of seLf-direeted exer- 
tion, we shall resume the consideration of it in a few 
particulars which seem to require further notice. Their 
relative importance, the means by which they are to be 
effected, and the spirit in which they should be prosecuted, 
are the points requiring investigation. 

I. Improvements in the arts and sciences are but 
improvements in society — so intimately blended is the 
state of knowledge with the condition of the world. 
Knowledge belongs to mankind and whatever increases it 
increases their common inheritanee, and multiplies both 
their happiness acd^^their strength. Hence those who have 
labored snccessfuUy to make improvements are always con- 
sidered as benefactors of their race. And, whether it be 
just or not^ reputation seems to be confined to this species 
of acquisition. The gi'eatest names in science owe their 
celebrity almost entirely to their inventions or discoveries. 
We should not have heard of Newton, or of Leibnitz, or 
of Herschel, but for the discoveries which have immortal- 
ized their memories. To learn what others have learned 
adds nothing to the general stock of knowledge, however 
much it may beueflt the learner himself; and the public 



INVENTIONS. 243 

have little cauae of gratitude because they have received 
little advantage. Had Xewton merely gone over the 
Eciences as they were taught in the universities in his day, 
he would have performed what thousands have done and 
been forgotten as thousands are ; but by venturing 
forward to unknown truths he enlarged the boundaries cf 
knowledge and made himself a name by giving new sciences 
to the world. We would not be understood to say tha: 
the applicatioa and the diffusion of knowledge are not 
important; their importance however, has in it nothing 
uncommon — it is only what is required of every one and 
affords no ground for distinction. The use of natural 
knowledge will save mankind from sinking to that degi'ada- 
tion which always attends the total neglect of the 
intellectual faculties, and the use of the sciences as they 
now are, will preserve to the world the very great advant- 
ages of which it is already possessed ; there are however 
other, and greater advantages in store — the future is full 
of possibilities that can only be reached by passing the 
present confines of knowledge. The prospects of society 
are worth more than its possessions; yet, is there no 
advancing so as to realize these prospects except by the 
adventurous path of discovery. Bacon avowed ii as the 
object of his philosophy to bring out these latent truths 
and by this means augment the number of the arts and 
sciences. '-The end of our science," says he, "is not t^ 
discover arguments, but arts, not what is agree-able to 
certain principles, but the principles themselves, nor 
probable reasons, but designations and indications of 
effects."* 

The numerous improvements which have taken place 
since the true object of philosophic inquiry was thus 
pointed out by Bacon, not only confii'm the truth of 

* Distribution of the Instauration. 



244 SELf EDtrCATlOJT. ' 

bis siDeculations, but give cheering hope to all who are 
engaged in prosecuting schemes of invention. Notwith- 
standing the evident importance of the object which the 
inventor or the discoverer has in view, his labors seem 
never to be appreciated except when they happen to be 
successful. This shows that such efforts are not recog- 
nized by the public as legitimate, and that they are only 
approved in those instances where the greatness of the 
success renders the contrary imposible. For this evil 
there is perhaps no remedy but the increase of intelligence, 
by which the connection between scientific invention and 
social welfai'e shall be better understood. 

II. The means of these achievements happily are not of 
doubtful character. 

Knowledge is the way to knowledge. There is in all 
science a tendency to expansion, and this tendency is the 
pledge of new discoveries. But the mind is endowed with 
an original power of knowing, and can at all times gain 
knowledge without the intervention of assistance. So that 
where there is previously no science, the exercise of this 
original power of knowing is always attended with its 
proportionate increase of knowledge. These first per- 
ceptions commonly include all that can ever afterwards be 
known, yet it is only in the shape of rudiments, as the 
acorn includes the oak, and the subsequent necessary 
expansion must be effected, like the growth of the oak, 
hy the enlargement of the germ. Copernicus conjectured 
that Venus would appear with different phases like the 
moon, but it was reserved for Galileo to demonstrate the 
fact by means of the telescope. Thus a better knowledge 
of the laws of optics enabled one philosopher to prove 
what, for want of such knowledge, an other philosopher 
could only conjecture. One truth becomes a stepping 
Stone to another, and so onward — how far is yet unknown. 



INVENTIONS. 245 

The Logic of Bacon is justly regarded as one of the 
most powerful instrumentalities in this work. Still the 
efficacy of the inductive system is derived altogether from - 
its spirit, and not from its details. The iduls of the tribe, 
of the den, of the market, and of the theater ; the method 
of exclusions, and the twenty-seven prerogative instances 
are of no value. Neither is the method of induction 
itself, of much consequence, except as it ensures that 
careful regard to things without which all reasoning is fal- 
lacious. A syllogistic argument is always an assumption, 
because it takes for granted the very thing to be proved ; 
tills exceedingly disgusted Bacon and led him to the 
widest extreme from such an absurd mode of reasoning. 
The syllogism manifests neither care nor proof, Ijut induc- 
tion largely comprehends botli. It is here that Ave 
perceive the true character of liis system, and it is by this 
feature alone that the .system has achieved such wonders 
in modern .science. Nothing but the principle of this 
philosophy is applicable to .science ; the followers of Bacoii 
have never been inclined to avail themselves of his formu- 
las, nor is it probable that they could have done so 
successfully had they been thus disposed. Bacon's own 
success is evidence enough that his rules are only of 
secondary conser|uence, for without them — but not with- 
out the care which is the foundation of all his rules — he 
made one of the greatest discoveries of modern times — the 
true method of philcsophizing. Since this discovery, 
dogmatism has rarely passed for science ; and since 
dogmatism has failed to pass for science, the real enquirer 
has as rarely failed in his researches. 

Before this reform in logic, words had been the grand 
instrument of invention, and facts were never allowed to 
have weight against propositions ; but the inductive sys- 
tem swept words totally away, and left nothing but facts 
to the use of the intellectual powers. 



246 3EL]? EDUCATION. 

Ill, Many pretend to be seeking truth, or aiming at 
improvements, while it is evident to all discerning minds 
that they either have no jixst idea of what the search re- 
quires, or are purposely trifling with the pursuit. If of 
the first class, they are ever learning and never able to 
come to the knowledge of the truth, and this because they 
seek it not in the right manner ; if of the second elasSj 
they are daring speculatists or idle system builders who 
wish to burlesque the scanty knowledge of man and re- 
proach a prudence but too well justified by the present 
condition of the human faculties. To guard against per= 
version and dissipation of this kind, we shall notice some 
of the characteristics of the true enquirer. 

1. Utihty. As he who works may be distinguished 
from him who plays by the greater degree of usefulness 
which marks his efforts, so he who is really aiming at im- 
provement and means to increase the sum of human 
knowledge, may bo known by the advantages which he 
proposes to confer in case he shall be sueeessful. What 
worthy object has any mere theorist ever had in view ? 
Such men wish to amuse themselves or the world by 
strange combinations, and by exhibiting a sort of comic 
ia the department of science. Odd, unlooked-for, and 
hasty solutions of things mysterious are the delight of such 
geniuses. If they study Astronomy, it is not to enlarge 
commerce and exalt our ideas of the supreme Being, but 
simply to tell how the world was made; they have a de- 
cided penchant for the useless, and would drag us through 
the worlds of either in search of truths which, if ever 
gained, would be lighter in value than the ether through 
which we pass to get at them. Not so with the sober in-, 
quirer after knowledge. He seeks for nothing which can 
not be useful ; he has no time for things merely speeu.'* 
lative- 



INVENTIONS. 247 

2. Modesty. The inquiries of one in search of truth are 
always unassuming, and free from that bold — that forward, 
unblushing front which characterizes the mere theoiist and 
the dealer in dogmatism. He who means to make his 
word or his ingenuity pass for science, will tell you with 
the greatest deliberation that things are thus, merely be- 
cause he thinks them thus, and not because he has any 
indubitable evidence for what he alledges. In this it 
would be well for all to imitate Sir Isaac Newton, who gave 
his views to the world under two heads, facts and queries. 
He could not, — though of all men he had the best right 
to, — ask mankind to take his mere conjectures for indis- 
putable truths. Yet, how often do we see men offering 
their own fancies to the world as reliable facts — verities 
that may not even be questioned. What is this but 
impudence ? And what but folly can allow such impu- 
dence to pass unreproved ? 

3. Docility. Lord Bacon has justly said that there in 
no conquering nature but by submission.* He illustrates 
this in an other place as follows: "There is no other en- 
trance open to the kingdom of nature than to the kingdom 
of heaven, into which no one may enter escept in the form 
of a little child. "t Men who seek truth, but not with a 
teachable spirit, are not so much learners as teachers ; they 
profess to seek truth, while in fact they are only communi- 
cating it. To be ready and willing to loam — nay, to be 
more ready to learn than to teach, is one of the most 
prominent characteristics of original iuvestigation. No 
mind wanting in docility can patiently and delightfully 
glean from every source whatever is available of knowl- 
edge, saying constantly with an eminent man, " what I 
know not, God and man teach me." This spirit is evinced 

* Nov. Orjf. Apli .3. 
t Interp, of Nature. 



2-i8 SELF EDUCATION. 

in the inductive philosophy, by that marked attention 
■which is paid to minute circumstances. In this philosophy 
the falling of an apple affords a clue to unravel the system 
of the universe. But such a circumstance would never be 
thought to carry with it any thing instructive — no philoso- 
pher would search the nature of such a trifle for the theory 
of the universe, unless he sat at the feet of nature, and 
believed her every work fraught with the same infinite 
wisdom. G-reat things are often only an aggregate of small 
ones; the ocean is only a collection of drops, and drops 
are only a collection of particles. Now each of these 
particles — each of these drops, contains all the peculiar- 
ities of the whole mass, and hence, each of them is. a 
fountain of truth which the teachable will not despise. 

-I-. Caution. Caution in determining and industry in 
collecting are the essentials of induction. But the course 
of daring speculators is exactly the reverse. They look 
out upon the heavens and see luminous spots — and be- 
cause, after getting the highest magnifying powers, these 
luminous spots still appear to be luminous spots, they 
gravely conclude that these collections of shining matter 
are young worlds just starting into existence. They tell 
us that this globe was once equally light and rare, and that 
it has become dense by degrees. We are informed how 
all this is done — it cools, it rolls, it consolidates, until out 
iif thin, transparent matter an adamantine world is com- 
posed. Thanks to these gentlemen for the modus 
operandi by which this mundane system was ushered into 
being, though we still incline to believe on good aiithority 
that "in sis days Grod made the world." But the a-stron- 
omer is not alone in his fault. The geologist must have his 
share, nay the mesmerist belongs to this fraternity of 
philosophers. The former sees a stone or a shell — imme- 
diately he assures us millions of years are necessary to such 



INTENTIONS. 249 

productions ; the latter finds he can strangely affect the 
nervous system of some individual, and hence concludes all 
mysteries are resolvable into magnetism. Miracles are 
magnetism — Christianity is magnetism. Such haste sets 
all care at defiance. And yet most of these errors, inexcus- 
able as they are, can be traced to distinguished names ia 
the learned world. 

5. Self-support. This enterprise is characterized by a 
self-sustaining power. The object, though distant, en- 
nobles the mimJ. Truth lends its greatness to the seeker ; 
truth is dignified and dignifies those who seek it. Hope 
mingles largely in the support of those who are toiling fur 
the advancement of science. The greatness of their ob- 
ject inspires patience, and they are willing to labor long 
and hard for value so high. Like men conscious of ap- 
proaching wealth, they dread not to exhibit indications 
of poverty ; they care not for foreign opinions, since 
certain prospects inwardly sustain them against all oppofi- 
tiou from without. 

These are the most important traits of that progress of 
which science is yet capable. That the burden of this 
progress is thrown upon self- education none can deny, for 
such a work never was attempted by the schools. But in 
self- education the chances of eminence are not confined to 
an extension of science, as its limited means often afford 
an opportunity for re-invention and re- discovery. Hence, 
if science were at a stand and all hopes of improvement 
cut off, the solitai-y student might yet rival Newton, for 
he might yet make the discoveries that Newton made. 
To those however who follow a text book or a teacher, 
such achievements are impossible ; and^they can only hope 
to equal the great masters of science when they have 
advanced to where helps of this kind are no longer avail- 
able. Nevertheless, the desire of original improvement 

P 



250 SELF EDUCATION, 

should not act as a dissuasive from tlie usual means of ed- 
ucation, because the world is not so much to be benefited by 
re-discovering what is already known, as by augmenting 
the sum of knowledge. Nor is the labor of passing, in 
any particular direction, to the extreme of accredited 
science, such as to discourage a reasonable ambition. 
It may be that in the very outset, while canvassing the 
rudiments only, new light will break in upon the mind, and 
thus not only shorten the process of acquisition by en- 
larging comprehension, but revolutionize the science by 
superseding the deductions of previous enquirers. 



APPENDIX. 



CHAPTER XV. 
Page 49. 

Tliat books have nearly superseded the use of oral instruction 
and greatly changed the character of our literary institutions, has 
been remarked by Carlyle in his usually quaint but graphic style. 

'' Look at Teaching for instance. Universities are a notable, 
respectable product of modern ages. Their existence, too, a 
modified, to the very basis of it, by the existence of books. Uni- 
versities arose while there were yet no books procurable; while i« 
man for a single book, had to give an estate of land. That, in 
those circumstances, when a man had some knowledge to com. 
municate, he should do it by gathering the learners round him, 
face to face, was a necessity for him. If you wanted to know 
what Abelard knew, you must go and listen to Abelard. Thou- 
sands, as many as thirty thousand, went to hear Abelard and that 
metaphysical theology of his. And now for any other teacher 
who had also something of his own to teach, there was a great 
convenience opened : so many thousands eager to learn were al- 
ready assembled yonder ; of all places the best for him was that. 
For any third teacher it was better still ; and grew even the better 
the more teachers there came. It only needed now that the King 
took notice of this new phenomenon ; combined or agglomerated 
the various schools into one school ; gave it edifices, privileges, en- 
couragements, and named it Universitas, or School of all Sciences : 
the University of Paris, in its essential characters, was there. 
The model of all subsequent Universities ; which down even to 
these days, for six centuries now, have gone on to found them- 
selves. Such, I conceive, was the origin of Universities. 

" It is clear, however, that with this simple circumstance, facility 
of getting Books, the whole conditions of the business /rom top ta 
bottom were changed. Once invent Printing, you metamorphosed 
all Universities, or superseded them ! The Teacher needed not 



254 APPENDIX. 

nov/ to gather men personally round him, that he might speak to 
them what he knew : print it in a Book, and all learners far and 
wide, for a trifle, had it each at his own fire side, much more 
effectually to learn it ! — Doubtless there is still peculiar virtue in 
speech ; even writers of Books may still, in some circumstances, 
iind it convenient to speak also. There is, one would say, and 
must ever remain while man has a tongue, a distinct province for 
speech as well as for Writing and Printing. In regard to all 
things this must remain ; to Universities among others. But the 
limits of the two have no where yet been pointed out, ascertained ; 
much less put in practice : the University which would completely 
take in that great new fact, of the existence of Printed Books, and 
stand on a clear footing for the Nineteenth Century as the Paris 
one did for the Thirteenth, has not yet come into existence. If 
we think of it, all that a University, or final highest school can do 
for us, is still but what tlie first School began doing, — teach us to 
read. We learn to read, in various languages, in various sciences ; 
we learn the alphabet and letters of all manner of Books. But 
the place where we are to get knowledge, even theoretic knowl- 
edge, is the Books themselves ! It depends on what we read, after 
all manner of Professors have done their best for us. The true 
• University of these days is a collection of Books." Carlyle on 
Heroes and Hero.Worship, p. 144. 

CHAPTER V. 
Page 94. 
No one acquainted with the difficultiea of acquiring completely 
a dead language will wish to be very positive on the subject of 
translations. Still the greatest obstacle to a correct rendering of 
the ancient poets into modern language is the want of that genius 
which dictated the originals. To preserve and to transfer the 
beauties of the author, the translator himself should be capable of 
employing his own language in its most poetic forms. It is no won. 
der that many attempts at translation are failures, for something 
more than a lexicon and grammar are necessary to reconstruct an 
ancient poem. The complaint that these works cannot be trans- 
lated does not arise from those who are best fitted for such tasks, 
but from quite another class who think it wrong inasmuch as 
they know the language, that these old bards will not submit to 
be translated by them. Poets will only yield to poets. Pope, 
Milton, Johnson and Cowper experienced none of this indignity. 



APPENDIX. 255 

To tiicrn the classic bards disclosed their mysteries freely as to 
peers — kindred spirits with whom to associate would be no dishon- 
or, and in whose liands their fame might safely be entrusted- 
Nor would it have availed if to these as to the. other class, the 
classics had proved unmanageable. If Pope could not decipher Ho- 
mer, he could supply what was wanting and let Homer go. He was 
himself a master workman, and Homer might speak — might give 
his consent, or stand aside. 

As to any other difficulty, it is merely nominal. True, we can- 
not without much labor comprehend the genius and the terms of 
a dead language, and this very difficulty will always diminish the 
value of such languages; but when they are understood, and Es 
far as they arc understood, if it be plain matter of prose, the sense 
can be sufficiently well expressed for all practical purposes. Eot 
tiic truth is, that the original is not apt to be well understood, and 
for this reason the work of translation is not likely to be agreeable. 

Page 121. 

The dependence of genius on the Divine Being is so uniform as 
to lead to the conclusion, — not new however, — that study lendstc 
piety. Accordingly most eminent men have been as remarkable 
for religion in some form, as for science. The following prayers 
are taken from Lord Bacon and Dr. Johnson ; and they are but a 
fair expression of that strong religious feeling— that thorough depen- 
dence on God — which distinguished them through life, and went 
far towards enabling them to execute those works by which, ar.d 
by which alone, they arc known to us. The first concludes v.-hat 
is properly the introduction to Bacon's Instauration — the greatei?t 
work of modern times ; and the last is Johnson's prayer for the 
success of his Rambler— which his biographer justly says is the 
basis of his fame. 

'^ May thou, therefore, O Father who gavcst the light of vision 
as the first fruits of creation, and hast inspired the countenance of 
man with the light of the understanding as the completion of t;;y 
•workSjguard and direct this work which p'^occeding from thy bounty, 
seeks in return thy glory. When thou turnedst to look upon the 
works of thy hands, thou sawcst that all were very good, and 
rcstcdst. But man, when he turned towards the works of his 
hands, saw that they were all vanity and vexation of spirit, and 
had no rest. Wherefore if v.'e labor in thy work?, thoxi wilt make 



256 APPENDIX. 

U3 partakers of that which thou beholdest, and of thy rest. We 
humbly pray that our present disposition may continue firm, and 
that thou mayest be wil!in£f to endow thy family of mankind with 
new gifts through our hands, and the hands of those to whom 
thou wilt accord the same disposition." 

"Prayer on the Rambler, — Almighty God. the giver of all 
good things, without whose help all labor is ineffectual, and with. 
out whose grace all wisdom ia folly ; grant, I beseech thee, that in 
this my undertaking, thy Holy Spirit may not be withheld from 
me, but that I may promote thy glory, and the salvation both of 
myself and others; grant this, O Lord, for the sake of Jesus 
Christ. Amen." 

CHAPTER XL 

Page 228. 

In the eleventh chapter I have referred to the subject of preco- 
cious genius. One of the most striking instances of tlie kind has 
recently occurred in our own country. I allude to the case of 
young Safford, of Vermont, an account of v.-hom has gone the 
round of the newspapers, and might for that reason be omitted 
here, were it not deserving of permanent record, as an iilustration 
in the philosophy of mind. 

•■Being a few days since in the vicinity of Royalton, Vt. on 
business connected with my Bible agency, I was induced, by the 
reports I had often seen in the public prints, of a remaikable boy 
in town, to pay him a visit. The name of this precocious youth is 
Truman Henry Safford, Jr. He is the son of Truman Henry and 
Louisa Safford, of Pioyalton, Vt. He was born on the 6th 
day of January, 1836. He was consequently ten years old on the 
6th day of January, 1846. His constitution is frail — his health, 
though more robust than a year since, is yet delicate — his limbs 
small, his hair dark, his eyes dark, projecting and indescribably 
brilliant, and his countenance pallid, yet open, and beaming with 
intelligence. 

'• His wonderful powers of rnind began to be developed when very 
young. At the age of twenty months he learned his letters. Be- 
fore three years old, he could reckon time upon a clock almost 
intuitively. He also learned to enumerate according to the Ro- 
man method from Webster's spelling book, He commenced 



APPENDIX. 257 

going to schfxjl when three years old; but this he did not like. 
His mode of study was perfectly unique. He did not pursue the 
common, circuitous loutc to the results of study. Since then, he 
has been very little, and now goes none at all. Probably, no col- 
lege in the United States could instruct him much, if any. 

'■ When he first began to go to school, liis teachers could not 
comprehend his ways, nor instruct his infant mind. Every branch 
of study he could master alone witli ease and rapidity. He com- 
menced Adams' new arithmetic on Tuesday morning and finished 
it completely on Friday night ! And when he finishes a book, it 
is done perfect!}'. He would not fully set down his sums, but 
cover his slate with a shower of figures, and at once bring out the 
answer. The teacher would look on in astonishment, unable to 
keep up with him, or to comprehend his operations, carried on in 
his mind with the rapidity of lightning, and then dashed on t'-> 
the slate, no matter which end first. His thirst for all kinds of 
knowledge is very great. The whole ci.cle of science is as fami- 
liar to him as a household word. His father obtained for him 
Gregory's Dictionary of the Arts and Sciences, in three large 
volumes. This work, you know, is a vast encyclopedia of know!. 
edge, treating briefly upon all branches of human knowledge. 

" This was just the woik he wanted ; for an outline of anything 
is enough— he can make the re.'st. It was this book that first gave 
him a taste for the higher mathematics. Here he found the defi. 
nition of a logarithm, and from this alone he went on and made 
almost an entire table of them before seeing them. 

'• One day he went to Ins father and told him he wanted tocalcu. 
late the eclipses and make an almanac I He said he wanted 
some books and instruments. His father tried to put him off'; 
but the boy followed him into the fields and wheresoever he went, 
begging for books and instruments with the most aiTecting impor- 
lunity. Finally, his father promised to accompany him to Dart, 
mouth College, and obtain for him, if possible, what he wanted. 
At this the boy was quite overjoyed ; so much so, that when they 
hove in sight of the College, he cried out in rapture, ' O, tiiere 
is the college 1 there are the books! there are the instruments!' 
But they did not find all they wanted. At Norwich, however, 
they made up their complement. 

" On coming home, the boy took up Gummc-re's Astronomy, 
opened it in the middle, rolling it to and fro, dashing through its 



258 APPENDIX. 

dry and. tedious formulas, went cut at both ends. By the way, 
this is his usual mode of study. He does not begin any book at 
the beginning, but always in the middle, and then goes with a 
rush both ways. I asked him if, when he opened Gummere's 
Astronomy in the middle, he could comprehend those complicat- 
ed formulas that depended on previous demonstrations? He re- 
plied that he could generally, but sometimes he ' looked back a 
little.' On arriving at home, he projected several ecHpses, and 
also calculated them through all their tedious operations by figures. 
This, as all mathematicians know, involves a knowledge of laby- 
rinths of mathematics, and also of formulas and processes most 
complicated and difficult. 

. " He has recently made an almanac for A. D. 1846, in which 
are the calculations of two eclipses of the sun wrought out wholly 
by its infant author, besides other valuable tables ; especially, 
one showing the amount of duties on wool, under all the tariffs 
since the formation of the government up to the act of 1842. 
This table the boy calculated alone. And that he calculated, 
without aid, the two eclipses of the sun, is attested by the pub- 
lished certificates of judges, lawyers, and clergymen. 

" If any still doubt the boy's ability to calculate an eclipse and 
explain it in all its parts, I would recommend them to go to Royal- 
ton, Vt., where he is now to be seen, and by a persons^ examina- 
tion, satisfy themselves. He will not only bury you in a minute 
beneath a flood of figures, sines, tangents, co-sines and co.tan- 
gents, but he will use all the technical terms of mathematics, with 
the greatest precision — dashing through abstruse formulas, and 
narrating every step of his work with ease, rapidity, and never, 
failing accuracy. VVhen in his presence, under such circumstan- 
ces, if any one, even the most learned, can repress the emotions 
of wonder that must struggle in his soul, and not feel that he is in 
the presence of a superior being, I confess I shall be very much 
surprised. Not satisfied with the old circuitous process of delay, 
young SafFord is constantly evolving new rules for abridging his 
work. He has found a new rule by which to calculate eclipses, 
hitherto unknown, as far as I know, to any mathematician. He 
told me it would shorten the work nearly one third. When find- 
ing this rule, for two or three days he seemed to be in a sort cf 
trance. 



APPENDIX. 259 

" One morning, very early, he came rushing down stairs, not 
stopping to dress himself, poured on his slate a stream of figures, 
and soon cried out in the wildness of his joy, ' O ! father, 1 have 
got it ! I have got it ! it comes ! it comes !* I questioned him 
respecting this rule. He commenced the explanation. His eyes 
rolled spasmodically in their sockets, and he explained his v/ork 
with readiness. To hear him talk so rapid!)', and yet so techni- 
cally exact, and so far above the comprehension of all, save the 
most profound mathematician, put to flight all my doubts and 
filled me with utter astonishment. He said he did not know as 
his new rule would work in all eases, but as yet it had. He also 
remarked that the nearer noon the eclipses come on, the easier it 
was to apply his rule. 

" But young Safford's strength does not lie wholly in mathemat- 
ics. He has a sort of mental absorption. His infant mind drinks m 
knowledge as the sponge does water. Chemistry, botany, philoso- 
pliy, geography, and history are his sport. 

" It does not make much difference what question you ask him ; 
he answers very readily. I spoke to him of some of the recent 
discoveries in chemistry. He understood them. I spoke to him of 
the solidification of carbonic acid gas, by Prof. Johnston, of the 
Wcsleyan University. He said he understood it. Here his eyes 
flashed fire, and he began to explain the procesp. When onlj' four 
years old he would surround himself upon the floor with Morse's, 
Woodbridgc's, Olncy's, Smith's and Malte Brun's Geographies, 
tracing them through and comparing them, noting all tlicir points 
of difference. 

" His memory too is very strong. He has poured over Gregory's 
Dictionary of the arts and sciences so much that I seriously doubt 
whether there can be a question asked him, drawn from either of 
those immense volumes, that he will not answer instantly. I saw 
the volumes, and also noticed that he had left his marks on almost 
every page. I asked to see his mathematical v.'orks. He sprano- 
into his study and produced Greenleaf's Arithmetic, Peikin's 
Algebra, Hutton's Mathematics, Gummcre's Astronomy, and sev. 
eral nautical almanacs. I asked him if lie had mastered them ail. 
He replied that he had. And an examination of him for the space 
of three hours convinced me that he had ; and not only so, hut that 
he had far outstripped them. His knowledge is not intuitive. He i.-i 
a pure and profound reasoncr. In this he excels all other geniuses 



260 APPENDIX. 

cf whom I ever read. He can not only reckon figures in his mind 
v/ith the rapidity of lightning, but he reasons, compares, reflects, 
and wades at pleasure through all the most abstruse sciences, and 
comprehends and reduces to his own clear and brief rules, the 
highest mathematical knowledge. His mind is constantly active. 
No recreation or amusement can avail for any length of time to 
divert him from mental etTort. Accompanied by Rev. C. M. Smith, 
of Randolph, Vt., who was acquainted with Mr. and Mrs. SafFord, 
I had free access to the boy, and ample opportunity for a long and 
thorough examination. I went firmly expecting to be able to con- 
found him, as I previously prepared myself with various problems 
for his solution. I did not suppose it possible for a boy of ten years 
only to be able to piay, as with all the higher branches of mathemat- 
ics. But in this I was disappomted. 

'* Here follow some of the questions I put to him, and his answers. 
I said, ' Can you tell me how many seconds old I was last March, 
the I2th day, when I was 27 years old?' He replied instantly, 
' 85,255,200,' Then said I, ' The hour and minute hands of a 
clock are exactly together at 12 o'clock ; and when are they next 
together ?' Said he, as quick as thought, ' 1 hour, 5 minutes, 11 
seconds.' And here I will remark that I had only to read the 
sum to him once. He did not care to see it, but only hear it 
announced once, no matter how long. Let this fact be remem- 
bered in connection with some of the long blind sums I shall here- 
after name, and see if it does not show his amazing power of per- 
ception and comprehension. He would perform the sums mentally, 
and also on a slate, working by the briefest and strictest rules, and 
hurrying on to an ansA'cr with a rapidity outstripping all capacity 
to keep up with him. 

[We take the liberty of omitting numerous arithmetical ques- 
tions, all answered satisfactorily, on account of their length.] 

" Then said I, ' What number is thatwhich being divided by the 
product of its digits, the quotient is 3 ; and if 18 be added the digits 
will be inverted ?' He flew out of his chair, whirled round, rolled 
up his wild, flashing eyes, and said in about a minute, ' 24.' 

" Then said I, ' What two numbers are those whose sum muUi. 
plied by the greater is equal to 77 ; and whose difference, multi. 
plied by the less, is equal to 12 ?' He again shot out of his chair 
like an arrow, flew about the room, his eyes wildly rolling in their 
sockets, and in about a minute said, '4 and 7.' 'Well said I, 



APPENDIX. 261 

'The sum of two numbers is S, and the sum of their cubes 152. 
What are the numbers ?' Said he instantly, ' 3 and 5.' Now in 
regard to these sums, they are the hardest of Davie's Algebra. 
I have had classes of one liundred scholars who have not 
been able to perform several of them. But youug SafTord, at one 
reading, comprehended them at a flash, and returned almost 
instantly correct answers. He also gave me correct Algebraic 
formulas for doing them. Then I took him into Plane Trigonom. 
ctry. 

" I then asked his parents if I might give him a hard sum to per- 
form mentally. They said fliey did not wish to tax his mind too 
much, nor too often to his full capacity ; but were quite willing to 
let me try him once. 

" Then said I, ' Multiply in your head 365.305,361,361, 3C5,.165 
by 305,355,465,395,365,365 '.' He flew round the room like a top., 
pulled his pantaloons over the tops of his boots, bit his hand, rolled 
his eyes in their socketi, sometimes smi'ing and talking, and then 
seeming to be in agony, until, in not more than one minute, said 
he, '133,491,850,208,566,925,016,058,299,941,533,225 !' The 
boy's father, Rev. C. N. Smith, and myself, had each a pencil and 
slate to take down the answer, and he gave it to us in periods of 
three figures each, as fast as it was possible for us to write them. 
And what was still more wonderful, he began to multiply at the 
left hand, and bring out the answer from left to right, giving the 
first 133,491, &.C. Here, confounded above measure, I gave up 
the examination. The boy looked pale, and said ho was tired. 
He said it was the largest sum he ever did ! 

" In conclusion, I am aware that this narrative is almost incredi- 
ble. But let it be remembered that I went a skeptic, took a good 
witness with me, examined the boy carefully, and here pledge my 
sacred honor that all I have stated is true. 

'= HENRY W. ADAMS, 
'' Agent of the American Bible Society. 

" Concord, N. H., Jan., 1846." 

The above is a clear, consistent, and well authenticated ac- 
count of one of those mental prodigies which, if they afford no 
rule to ordinary minds, serve at least to demonstrate the essential 
capability of the human intellect. They reveal the law of acqui- 
sition, though inferior geniuses may never be able to imitate their 
rapid progress. Another advantage also arises Irom the consider- 



262 APPENDIX. 

ation of these phenomena — they explain those instances of anal- 
ogous character which occur in more advanced years. In some 
minds this peculiar talent does not exhibit itself till a much later 
period of life. The case of SafFord, for instance, fully discloses 
the method in which the following individual acquired his knowl- 
edge of languages. 

" One of the most remarkable instances, on record, of success 
in the acquisition of languages, by unaided effort, is seen in the 
case of Richard Robert Jones, a young man who became known 
to the hterary world, through the kindness of the late Mr. R oscoe 
of Liverpool. R. R. Jones was a poor boy, whose whole occupa. 
tion, previously to his visit to Liverpool, had been fishing. At the 
time of his presenting himself to Mr. R., he was but little more 
than twenty years of age, and yet he was already familiar with 
Latin, Greek, and Hebrew ; he could read Italian, and converse 
in French. He had read the Iliad, Hesiod, Theocritus, &c., was • 
conversant with the refinements of Greek pronunciation, with the 
connection between Greek and Hebrew, and could translate Latin 
into either English or Welsh. Shortly after this, he had a conver- 
sation with Dr. Parr, one of the most distinguished scholars in 
Europe. In this mterview, they discussed the profoundest matters 
of Greek erudition, the works of critics and commentators, and 
Richard is reported to have sustained himself fully ; but when he 
turned the conversation to Hebrew and Chaldee, the Doctor was 
obliged to retreat. When asked his opinion of Dr. Parr, he said 
that 'he appeared to him less ignorant than most men.' Yet, so 
abject was the poverty of this young man, that he had never learn. 
ed the use of a bed ; but when he was first shown, for the night, 
into a room containing one, crept under it." Pursuit of knowl- 
edge under difficulties, (Wayland's edition, yol. 1. p. 283.) 



THE END. 







Errata. 






Page. 
48 8 Ime from top for ot 


■ Newton, read 


and 


Newton. 


59 16 " 


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Coudillac, " 


Condillac. 


62 9 '^ 


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Odyssey. 


69 12 " 


Ci 11 


irremediable, 


read 


irremeable. 


88 2 " 


bottom " 


Romulous, 


11 


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108 6 " 


top " 


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(1 


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116 17 " 


" " 


corrolaries. 


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122 U " 


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impracticed 


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123 


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123 17 " 


bottom " 


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132 9 " 


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160 15 " 


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189 8 " 


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191 " " 


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194 


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197 5 " 


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199 6 " 


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